Creating "hot spots" in columns, sort on click

[esammons]

I have never tried this before in PHP, nor do I believe I even have the terminology correct so I thought I would seek the advice of those with stronger foo.

I would like to make my column headings in a table "hot" so that when a user selects (clicks on) a given heading the contents of the table will be sorted based on that column.

What is the recommended way for handling this desired functionality? I would prefer a non-javascript solution, first my javascript foo is not very strong at all and second we are not big on javascript around here.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

[romance]

you could do something like the following:

for the each of the columns headings add something like nameofyourfile.php?sort=columnName&order=asc

your SQL statement would then be affected by the querystring such like the following:

if ($HTTP_GET['columnName'] =="") // if there is no sort querystring then just do a normal statment
{
$SQL = "select * from tablename ";
}
else // otherwise sort by querystring
{
$SQL = "select * from tablename order by ".$HTTP_GET['columnName']." ".$HTTP_GET['order'];
}

that could be used as a basis. Remember however that your letting users alter SQL statement with querystrings so you should take precautions in making sure that no malicous code is used

[esammons]

I was hoping to do this with a POST only, no gets. And to be sure I am clear on what I am looking for, as I have never done this before, I would like to create a link or button in the column headings that when clicked will cause the column to sort based on that.

I have thinking about using an array to hold the results so that I don't have to execute the sql again; however, there is the chance that this array could be large -- real large.

Also, I personally have never executed php code by any means other than a button. Is there a way to execute php code by simply clicking a LINK?

Thanks!

[Gibb]

POST would be a really bad idea IMO. You could do it i suppose, but it would make it so if you ever pressed back, you'd get a page expired error. I've never seen a column sorting script that used anything but GET.

[esammons]

How would I do this with GET? and again, without Javascript. I am open to the idea of using GET, I tend to avoid GET where it may get me into trouble with long urls by passing variables.

thanks!

[lemkepf]

Make the column heading regular links. you'd have something like:

<a href="nameofyourfile.php?sort=columnName&order=asc">Column Name</a>

Then do as romance said and create the SQL based on the $_GET['sort'] and $_GET['order'].