Database Driven Sites - Rev3 - Chapter6

[rymercho]

Hi,
I am writing the code for editauthors.php and had a few syntax problems that I have weeded out and now the page displays after click 'edit' sending the query

http://localhost/mysql_database/editauthor.php?id10

The interface is a little unintuitive as you have no idea what user you are editing but I am sure I can fix that with an echo $name $email above the form.

The problem is that once I enter new information in to the edit form. It reports a success and I go back to the authors page to find the edit has not been made? I double checked via the terminal SELECT * FROM authors; and the read out matches the web page. So I am stuck, and I get no errors!?

<?php

// A new author has been entered
// Using the form below


// Connect to the database server
$dbcnx = @mysql_connect('localhost', 'root', 'password');
if (!$dbcnx) {
    exit('<p>Unable to connect to' . 
        'Datadabe server at this time</p>');
  }else{
    echo '<p>You have sucessfully conneted to the database server</p>';
}


// Select the jokes database
if (!@mysql_select_db('ijdb')) {
  exit('<p>Unable to locate the joke ' .
      'database at this time</p>');
}else{
  echo '<p>You have sucessfully conneted to the jokes database</p>';
}

if (isset($_POST['name'])):
  // The author's details have been updated.

  $name = $_POST['name'];
  $email = $_POST['email'];
  $id = $_POST['id'];
  $sql = "UPDATE author SET
          name='$name',
          email='$email'
          WHERE id='$id'";
  if (@mysql_query($sql)) {
    echo '<p>Author details updated.</p>';
  } else {
    echo '<p>Error updating author details: ' .
        mysql_error() . '</p>';
  }

?>

<p><a href="authors.php">Return to authors list</a></p>

<?php
else: // Allow the user to edit the author

  $id = $_GET['id'];
  $author = @mysql_query(
      "SELECT name, email FROM author WHERE id='$id'");
  if (!$author) {
    exit('<p>Error fetching author details: ' .
        mysql_error() . '</p>');
  }

  $author = mysql_fetch_array($author);

  $name = $author['name'];
  $email = $author['email'];

  // Convert special characters for safe use
  // as HTML attributes.
  $name = htmlspecialchars($name);
  $email = htmlspecialchars($email);

?>

<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post">
<p>Edit the author:</p>
<label>Name: <input type="text" name="name" value="<?php echo $name; ?>" /></label><br />
<label>Email: <input type="text" name="email" value="<?php echo $email; ?>" /></label><br />
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $id; ?>" />
<input type="submit" value="SUBMIT" /></p>
</form>

<?php endif; ?>

Any help would be grand!

[rymercho]

You know what!

Sometimes it is better to sit back and write on a forum to make you think...

I entered this line above the form and notice there was output on screen for the variables $name and $email!?:

<?php echo '<p>You are editing the details of: ' . $name . $email . '</p>'; ?>

Weird I thought, then looking at the url string and noticing it should actually be id=10.

http://localhost/mysql_database/editauthor.php?id10


So there was nothing wrong with the file at all!
It was the paged handing over to editauthor.php that was the problem!

<a href='editauthor.php?id$id'>Edit</a>

Amended:

<a href='editauthor.php?id=$id'>Edit</a>

Sill don't know why there wasn't any error reporting but I will look at that.

If there was any one piece of advice I could give anybody learning this stuff it would be, every time you have an instance of !$var exit echo 'unsuccessful' have an else echo 'report the successful command'.

They can always be deleted once you know it works!

From
A. Noob

[atetlaw]

Hey, thanks for posting your solution. And the helpful advice

[rymercho]

Thanks, if I don't get a reply and find the solution, I find it's always best to add it.

Makes the post a bit more worthwhile.

I'll be back, trust me - Chapter 7 is Regular Expression euugh! - Dull as hell but probably because I don't get it.