Question

I have put together a very complicated search form. Using arrays I have managed to get it searching by checkboxes.

if(isset($_POST['search']) && !empty($_POST['search'])){
foreach($_POST['search'] as $key=>$value){
    if($value==1) $search[] = "$key";
}
$searchstring = implode(' AND ', $search);

}

        $query = "SELECT candidate_id.master_id, candidate_contact_details.first_name, candidate_contact_details.last_name, candidate_contact_details.home_phone, candidate_contact_details.work_phone, candidate_contact_details.mobile_phone, candidate_contact_details.email FROM candidate_id, candidate_contact_details, qualifications, security_experience, previous_career WHERE qualifications.active = 'finished' and candidate_id.master_id = candidate_contact_details.c_id and candidate_id.master_id = qualifications.c_id and $searchstring";

I know how to do searches of the database by a specific term. ie. postcode field but does anyone know how I can add that to this query? I know how to do either checkbox based searches or text field based searches but cannot figue out how to combine the two.

Thanks Again
Jason

Answer 1

As far as I can understand your question, you need to map the names of the form fields to database columns. You could set up an array like:

$post_map = array(
    'home_phone' => 'candidate_contact_details.home_phone',
    'first_name' => 'candidate_contact_details.first_name',
    // etc.
  );

Then you could add things to your query like (just an untested example…):

foreach ($_POST as $key => $value)
{
  if (array_key_exists($key, $post_map))
  {
     $search[] = $post_map[$key] . '=' . mysql_real_escape_string($value);
  }
}