CODEWITHSUNDEEP
php
GlenR
GlenR

Reputation: 95

Get category id only if category link is clicked

I need some help with this php file.

I'll explain what I need to do firstly:

I have main categories of products. When you click on a category you are then taken to a page with the subcategories for the clicked category, this part works fine. I now need it so that when you click on a subcategory, all the products for that subcategory are loaded into a div on the same page (using php with a refresh....)

I will post my code and comment it explaining the issues.

<?php
  include 'connect.php';
  $cat_id = intval($_GET['category']); //GETS THE CAT_ID OF THE CLICKED CATEGORY LINK
  $sql = mysqli_query($link, "SELECT * FROM subcategories WHERE cat_id = $cat_id AND   
                      status = 1");
  $output = '';
  while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($sql)){
     $data = $row['image'];
     $file = substr($data, strpos($data, "/") + 1);
     $output .= "<div class='subcats'>";
     $output .= "<a href='cats.php?subcategory=" . $row['subcat_id'] . "'>
                 <img src='$file' />"; //WHEN I CLICK ON A SUBCAT, I GET AN ERROR OF  
'UNDEFINED' FOR CATEGORY. NO CATEGORY IS BEING CLICKED. HOW DO I GET IT TO LOOK FOR A 
CATEGORY ONLY IF ONE IS CLICKED?
     $output .= "<div class='maincatheadings'>{$row['subcategory']}</div>";
 $output .="</a>";
 $output .= "</div>";
  }

  echo $output
?>

Upvotes: 0

Views: 444

Answers (3)

Till Helge
Till Helge

Reputation: 9331

You need the category ID to show the list of subcategories, so skipping the category ID entirely isn't an option. I see two ways to solve this problem:

  1. You submit category as well as subcategory on each of the links.
  2. If no category is set, but subcategory exists, you retrieve the category from the database by searching the parent of the selected subcategory.

Option 2 is much more solid than 1, because this cannot be manipulated into faulty parameter sets. (People could manipulate the URL and cause weird stuff to happen, if you don't make sure all necessary checks are done first.)

I would still consider changing the code, because right now you have no error handling in case the submitted category ID doesn't exist.

Upvotes: 2

cubitouch
cubitouch

Reputation: 1937

Because on the second click you are reloading with new values, and category isn't in the new set.

$output .= "<a href='cats.php?subcategory=" . $row['subcat_id'] . "'>

Will redirect from cats.php?category=XXXX to cats.php?subcategory=YYYY

This should do the work in your example :

$output .= "<a href='cats.php?category=". $_GET['category'] ."&subcategory=" . $row['subcat_id'] . "'>

Will redirect from cats.php?category=XXXX to cats.php?category=XXXX&subcategory=YYYY

And this should handle the "anything is selected" case if you need to :

$cat_id = intval(isset($_GET['category']) ? $_GET['category'] : 0);

Upvotes: 2

dev
dev

Reputation: 439

use a simple check prior to while loop, it result count is 0 than go to find products and than assign it to results:

$result = $mysqli->query($sql_quer);
    $num_rows = $result->num_rows;
    if($num_rows === 0)
    {
      $sql = mysqli->query("SELECT * FROM products WHERE cat_id = $cat_id AND   
                          status = 1");
    }

Upvotes: 0

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