2 forms 1 database table - question!

[Oracle]

Sorry, I'm becoming a familiar face to this forum now. Hate to keep bothering, but I am a total n00b!.

Ok so I have a financial website which has a very detailed (over 100 form fields) application form on it.

What I am struggling with at the moment is the following:

I enter my email address and a password on page 1 (for retrieval purposes). This then redirects to the first of four form pages. On the first page (personal details) the form data gets inserted intoa table (secure_loan), they then get redirected to the second page.

My question is (for design purposes):

Is it possible to then update the same table (as the first page) with the form data from the second page, or would it be far easier to have a seperate table, and for the retrieval (admin pages) just have sql statements linking tables).

I am very familiar with Oracle, but not so with MySQL. So I have a loan_id column in the first table, how do I link that to the loan_id on the second table. Do I have to manually create a foreign key or something?

Sorry, lots of questions, but any advice would be appreciated.

[spikeZ]

How much is a train ticket to Bedford?!

one thing that I learnt is not to insert data into the database until it has been checked and checked again. What I would do if I were you is to store all inputted data into session variables and print them out on a preview/ confirm page. Then once they have checked it and submitted, insert it into your table and destroy the session.

You can update the first table ( to answer your first question) by using the last insert id or max id.

SpikeZ

[Oracle]

Hello again SpikeZ.

I told you it wouldn' t be long! lol

I actually managed to code the next page all by myself, and got it working and updating the database etc... - so proud! lol

I like your idea about using session varibales, but I have a save and exit button on each page so the user can come back and complete their application later.

I am fairly SQL savvy so I'm not worried about the scripts for retrieving the data once its in the database, but I just can't get my head around how the second table can know which line it corresponds withh in the first table

 secure_loan.loan_id = secure_loan1.loan_id

How do I get these numbers to mach up?

I hope I explained it right.

And by the way its about a 3 hour drive to Bedford (£30+ by train), and I have a lovely spare room with a computer in it!!

[Oracle]

Think I'm gonna create 4 tables, and give each of them a foreign key pointing to the loan_id column of the first table.

However, if I do that, how can I pass this value across the different pages?

Examples would be great!

[Oracle]

bump***

[mark_W]

You could store them either in the URL and retrieve them using $_GET or you could store them in a session.

I would go for the session method!

[Oracle]

Ok so I will need to have a

$_SESSION['foreignkey'] = $foreignkey; 

But how do I specify a value for 'foreignkey'?