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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T20:32:09+00:00

I need a HTML-based form to tie database records together. The user scenario that

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I need a HTML-based form to tie database records together. The user scenario that I envision is somthing like this:

A super-user does a search of the database and is delivered a table of records based on that search; each record is numbered with the database-record id.

There would also be two text fields next to each record. These text fields would allow:

  1. the user to make a reference from one record to another. For example, a user could enter into record id #457 the integer 242 to indicate that there is a correlation with record ID #242.
  2. The user would also describe the type of relationship it is. This could be accomplished with a simple integer in the second field that indicates the type of relationship between the two records.

When the super-user hits the submit button, all of these relationships are saved in a mySqljoin table.

One option is to give me advice on how to implement and code this myself in PHP. However, before I reinvent the wheel, another option is to lead me to a free script that does something similar.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If you’re just looking for a pseudo-code framework, I would do it something like this for the body of the form:

    <form id="my_form" action="" method="post">
<table id="my_table"><tr><th>Result ID</th><th>Related ID</th><th>Relation Type</th></tr>

<?php
$result = mysql_query("SELECT blah blah");
while ($row = [your chosen method of fetching results]) {
    $resource_id = $row['id'];
    echo "<tr><td>".$resource_id."</td>";
    echo "<td><input type=\"text\" name=\"related[".$resource_id."]\" /></td>";
    echo "<td><input type=\"text\" name=\"type[".$resource_id."]\" /></td></tr>";
}
?>
</table>
<input type="submit" value="Submit Related Resources" />
</form>

    And then when the user submits the form, process it with another loop that goes through each value in the related and type arrays and submits a mysql_query(“INSERT blah blah”). For example:

    $related_resources = $_POST['related'];
$related_types = $_POST['type'];
foreach ($related_resources as $original_resource -> $related_resource) {
    $type = $related_types[$original_resource];
    mysql_query("INSERT INTO [table name] ('resource', 'related', 'type') VALUES ('".$original_resource."', '".$related_resource."', '".$type."'");
}

    Of course you should also add an “if in_array” etc. before getting the type to make sure the user entered one and store a default if not, or check the form for completeness before processing it if you want to require them to fill in both fields. You should also run your input through a safety function (escaping quotes etc.) before letting any users input data into your tables.

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