Question

I am using a loop to create dynamic checkboxes as described here

Everything works as expected and I have successfully created a table with 2 columns: userid and preferences.
Each checkbox has a unique preference value associated and If it is checked, then php stores it in a mysql database.

Now i need to repopulate the checkboxes if the user comes back on the page another day.

My idea (maybe not good enough..)

SELECT preference FROM Preference table WHERE UserId=CurrentUserId

and I can call the query result ---> $result[]

Now I got all the preferences of a certain user in a variable and I can make a loop with a IF condition when creating the dynamic checkboxes:

IF $result equals the current checkbox id then write checked

but I am not fully sure how to make it work and if it would work..any ideas?

Answer 1

It is exactly as you said.

1. Get the preferences from database for the current online user ($clientId).

   $query = "SELECT preference FROM Preference WHERE userId = $clientId";
   $res = sql_query($query, $connection);
   while($userPreference = mysql_fetch_array($res))
     $userPreferences[$userPreference] = true;
   

   I will assume they have a unique identifier called preference.

2. Iterate over all the preferences, checking against the selected $userPreferences from database.

   foreach($preferences as $preference) {
     $checked = $userPreferences[$preference] ? 'checked' : '';
     echo "<input type='checkbox' value='{$preference}' $checked />";
   }
   

Something like this should be enough to recreate the layout and choose user preferences.