Question

I have this chunk of code, which is displayed on a user’s journal page. They can add an entry and they have the option to delete an entry once it’s on the page.

Ill show the code with some comments and then explain the problem.

// Figures out how many recent posts to display
$posts = $config_journalposts + 1;
if($noposts!=1) {
    // Gets the data from the query
    while(($row = mysql_fetch_array($journalquery)) && ($posts > 1)) {
        // For each of the posts that were gathered, display the following:
        echo '<table border="0" width="100%">
            <tr>
                <td colspan="2" style="vertical-align:bottom;">
                    // Display the title as a link to be used as a permalink
                    <a href="?id='.$row['id'].'"><p class="fontheader">'.$row['title'].'</p></a>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                // Show the o-so-important content
                <td width="100%" style="vertical-align:top;padding-left:10px;">
                    '.$row['content'].'
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                // Show the date
                <td style="font-size:8pt;padding-top:10px;">'.$row['date_day'].'/'.$row['date_month'].'/'.$row['date_year'].'</td>';
                    // Checks if the current user is the owner of the journal or an admin
                    if($_SESSION['user']==$pageowner || $_SESSION['user_rank']=='Admin') {
                        echo '<td align="right">

                            // FOCUS POINT
                            <form method="POST" id="deljournal">
                                <input type=\'hidden\' name=\'delete_id\' value=\''.$row['id'].'\' />
                                // A delete button that executes a bit of Javascript
                                <button type="button" class="button" name="delete" value="Delete" onClick="delete_journal()" />Delete</button>
                            </form>
                            // END FOCUS POINT

                        </td>';
                    }
                echo '</tr>
            </table>
        <hr>
        ';
    $posts --;
}

Here is the Javascript that gets triggered on the button press

function delete_journal() {
    var answer = confirm("Are you sure you want to delete this journal entry?")
    if (answer){
        // Submits the form
        $("#deljournal").submit()
    }
}

This javascript triggers the forum in the PHP code above which reloads the page and triggers this at the very top of the page, before the tag

if(($_POST['delete_id'])) {
    // Gets the post ID from the hidden forum tag
    $deleteid = addslashes(strip_tags($_POST['delete_id']));

    // Deletes the row that has the ID of the hidden form
    mysql_query("DELETE FROM `gamezoid_accounts`.`journal_$pageowner` WHERE `id`='$deleteid'");
}

Now, for the problem. In the while loop, this form gets repeated over and over. What happens is that upon pressing the delete button, it triggers the form that has the ID “deljournal”. Since all of them have the ID “deljournal” it does the one at the top of the page. Trying to embed the post ID into the form ID breaks the code because the mysql_query doesn’t know that the delete function has been triggered in the first place.

Any way around this?

Reason why I’m using Javascript as a trigger is for the confirmation popup in case anyone askes.

Anyways, thanks heaps for reading this far!

Answer 1

Found a solution.

I have changed the form to be

<form method="POST" id="deljournal_'.$row['id'].'">
    <input type=\'hidden\' name=\'delete_id\' value=\''.$row['id'].'\' />
</form>
<button type="button" class="button" name="delete" value="Delete" onClick="delete_journal_'.$row['id'].'()" />Delete</button>

by adding the journal entry ID into the ID of the form and the onClick function. The javascript is just below it outside the table cell and looks like:

<script type="text/javascript">
    function delete_journal_'.$row['id'].'() {
        var answer = confirm("Are you sure you want to delete this journal entry?")
        if (answer){
            $("#deljournal_'.$row['id'].'").submit()
        }
    }
</script>

where the entry ID has been added to the function name and form ID tag. By putting the Javascript into a while loop and not into an external file, it can be manipulated with the loop to have the same values.

It is a bit messy and will slightly increase load times + execution times but it was the quickest way that I could find.

Hope this helps anyone else who has been having a similar problem.