Question

I have a user database which I want the admin to be able view users. I want the admin to be able to sort the users by different fields. (E.g first name or surname).

My problem:
Is that it wont sort. Im trying to do it using a drop down box and a submit button. I have have tried the Sql in phpMyAdmin to make sure the statement is correct which it is. I have also added a or die to make sure its not a mysql error. Im getting no errors its just not sorting. I have also tried echoing out the drop down to make sure the right value is being added to the variable.

code:
HTML drop down

  <form action="View_users.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="sort" id="sort" method="post" align="right">
        <label>
          <select name="sortdropdown" id="sortdropdown">
          <option value="<?php echo $sortby; ?>"><?php echo $sortby; ?></option>
          <option value="name">First Name</option>
          <option value="surname">Surname</option>
          <option value="email">Email</option>
          <option value="signupdate">Date</option>
          </select>
        </label>
        <label>
             <input type="submit" name="button" id="button" value="Sort" />
        </label>
     </form>

logic:

$sortby = "";
if (!isset($_POST['sortdropdown'])) {
            $sortby = "surnname";
    }else{
    $sortby = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['sortdropdown']);
    }
// This block grabs the whole list for viewing
$product_list = "";
$counter = 0;
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY '$sortby' ASC")  or            die(mysql_error());

$productCount = mysql_num_rows($sql); // count the output amount
if ($productCount > 0) {
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)){ 
            $counter++;
             $id = $row["id"];
            $email = $row["email"];
            $name = $row["name"];
            $surname = $row["surname"];
            $lastlogin = $row["lastlogin"];
            $signupdate = $row["signupdate"];
            if (is_float($counter/2)) {$class = "#CCCCCC"; }
            else {$class = "white";}
            $product_list .= '<tr bgcolor="'.$class.'">
            <td>'.$surname.'</td>
            <td>'.$name.'</td>
            <td>'.$email .'</td>
            <td><a href="user.php?id=' . $id . '">View More</a></td></tr>';
     }
 } else {
$product_list = "There are no users in the system yet";
}

Thanks

Answer 1

The comments are correct, you should be using back ticks `$sortby` instead of ‘$sortby’

The reason is – single quotes are used to wrap values in MySQL, which is not what you want. You’re passing the name of a table column, so you use back ticks because they are used to wrap table column names.