Question

I have a HTML form which I am using to update a MySQL table via a post script – however, I am having an issue where the update buttons which are on each row only ever work for the last row in the table.

<?php

$link = mysql_connect ('localhost', 'root', 'password');
mysql_select_db ('cardatabase');

$select = 'SELECT * from cars';
$result = mysql_query($select, $link);

if(isset($_POST['update'])){
    $updatequery = "UPDATE cars SET 
        ID='$_POST[id]',
        CARMAKE='$_POST[carmake]',
        CARMODEL='$_POST[carmodel]',
        FUELTYPE='$_POST[fueltype]',
        TRANSMISSION='$_POST[transmission]',
        DOORS='$_POST[doors]',
        AMOUNT='$_POST[amount]',
        AVAILABLE='$_POST[available]'
        WHERE ID='$_POST[hidden]'";

    mysql_query($updatequery, $link);
};

echo '<table><form action=update.php method=post>';
echo '<tr><td>ID</td><td>Make</td><td>Model</td><td>Fuel Type</td><td>Transmission</td><td>Engine Size</td><td>Doors</td><td>Amount</td><td>Available</td></tr>';



while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    echo '<tr>';
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='id' value='{$row['ID']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='carmake' value='{$row['CARMAKE']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='carmodel' value='{$row['CARMODEL']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='fueltype' value='{$row['FUELTYPE']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='transmission' value='{$row['TRANSMISSION']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='enginesize' value='{$row['ENGINESIZE']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='doors' value='{$row['DOORS']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='amount' value='{$row['AMOUNT']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='text' name='available' value='{$row['AVAILABLE']}'</td>";
    echo "<td><input type='hidden' name='hidden' value='{$row['ID']}'</td>";
    echo '<td><input type="submit" name="update" value="Update"</td>';
    echo '</tr>';
}

echo '</form></table>';
mysql_close ($link);

cars table:

Answer 1

Let’s start with this for visibility:

For future users seeing your questions. If you know this, great! Welcome to Stack Overflow! Please, don’t use mysql_* functions in new code. They are no longer maintained and the deprecation process has begun on it. See the red box? Learn about prepared statements instead, and use PDO or MySQLi – this article will help you decide which. If you choose PDO, here is a good tutorial.

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The problem you’re experiencing is caused by giving all of your inputs the same names (id, carmake etc). This means only the last row would ever be submitted.

Give them names like so:

name="id[]"

That would make PHP treat the $_POST values as arrays, and you can access

$_POST["id"][3]

To get the fourth row (Starting from 0), for example.