Question

As the title suggests I want to delete multiple rows from my database. To accomplish this I have two files, a front end file that generates a table that shows the files a user may delete which are chosen using checkboxes.

The back end file is to process the selected checkboxes and use an SQL statement to delete the chosen files.

The problem I am having is passing the id of a selected file from the front end to the back. The code for both files are below:

Front End

//Build Table Query
$query="SELECT * FROM documents";
$result= mysqli_query($con, $query) or die("Invalid query");

$count = mysqli_affected_rows($con); 

?>
<table width="400" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td><form name="form1" method="post" action="deletefilesback.php">
<table width="800" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<tr>
<td colspan="5" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align="center"><strong>Delete Multiple         Files</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">#</td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Id</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Title</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Description</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>File Location</strong></td>
</tr>
<?php
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)){
?>
<tr>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><input name="checkbox[]" type="checkbox"  id="checkbox[]" value="<?php echo $rows['id']; ?>"></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><?php echo $row['id']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><?php echo $row['title']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><?php echo $row['description']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><?php echo $row['doc_link']; ?></td>
</tr>
<?php
}
?>
<tr>
<td colspan="5" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><input name="delete" type="submit"   id="delete" value="Delete Files"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Back End

$delete = $_POST['checkbox'];

//Then do what you want with the selected items://
foreach ($delete as $id) {

$query="DELETE FROM documents WHERE id = '".$id."'";
$result= mysqli_query($con, $query) or die("Invalid query");

}
//Show that the items have been successfully removed.//
if (mysqli_affected_rows($con) > 0) {
echo '<p>The selected items have been successfully deleted.</p>';
} else {
echo '<p>An error has occurred while processing your request</p>';
}
?>

As a note, once this is working I will be using the unlink function to delete the file on the server using the doc_link part of the table on the front end.
Thanks

Answer 1

in html page do it like this

<input name="checkbox[<?php echo $row['id']?>]"

and in the back end do like this

foreach ($delete as $id => $val) {
    if($val=='checked'){
        $query="DELETE FROM documents WHERE id = '".$id."'";
        $result= mysqli_query($con, $query) or die("Invalid query");
    }
}