Question

All right, so I am being passed an array of checked items represented by their IDs through a $_GET request. For example, suppose the following form:

Question 1
[ ] Answer 1 [31]
[ ] Answer 2 [32]
[ ] Answer 3 [33]
[ ] Answer 4 [34]

Let’s assume the user chose Answer 2 and Answer 4, so the array that is passed contains 32 and 34, respectively, symbolizing their IDs in the database. Now, I want to loop through a database query of ALL of the answers for this question and print back checkboxes. However, if an answer is the one they picked, I’d like to have the checkbox already checked, so that, by my example, the output would be:

Question 1
[ ] Answer 1 [31]
[x] Answer 2 [32]
[ ] Answer 3 [33]
[x] Answer 4 [34]

I guess I’m just a bit off on my looping structure… but here is what I started with:

// The array that gets passed
$curr_answer_id = $_GET['answer'];

$length = count($curr_answer_id);

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($fetch2)){
    for($j = 0; $j < $length; $j++){
        if($row['answer_id'] == $curr_answer_id[$j]){
            echo "<input type='checkbox' value='$curr_answer_id[$j]' checked>".$row['answer']."</input>";
        } else {
            echo "<input type='checkbox' value='$curr_answer_id[$j]'>".$row['answer']."</input>";
        }
    }
        echo "<br \>";
}

However, this duplicates results for as many answers were checked. Aside from the duplicates, however, it functions fine. As in my previous example, the output is:

Question 1
[ ] Answer 1 [31]
[ ] Answer 1 [31]
[x] Answer 2 [32]
[ ] Answer 2 [32]
[ ] Answer 3 [33]
[ ] Answer 3 [33]
[ ] Answer 4 [34]
[x] Answer 4 [34]

How can I fix this using what I’ve got? If anyone can also lend me to a more efficient way to cycle through all of the data that would be great as well.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Maybe that is the right solution for you?

$curr_answer_id = $_GET['answer'];

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($fetch2))
{
    echo "<input type='checkbox' value='".$row['answer_id']."' ".(in_array($row['answer_id'], $curr_answer_id) ? " checked" : "").">".$row['answer']."</input>";
    echo "<br \>";
}

Not tested.

Update: replaced input value with $row['answer_id'] instead of $curr_answer_id[$j]