Question

I was looking online for a script that demonstrates how I would go about making it possible for users on my site able to edit fields and such, but I could not find anything about it. So I was wondering if someone could explain to me how it works or just demonstrate with a script? To make it clear, I want users to be able to edit stuff that they’ve submitted by simply clicking ‘edit’ and pressing a button to update whatever it was they changed.

Edit: I forgot to mention that what’s been changed should update a table in a MySQL database.

Answer 1

You need 2 PHP files to do this. You could use a single file but the concept is easier to explain this way.

1. A form that will load the database content into the fields where users can then edit the values and then submit them for change by pressing a button once done.
2. A file that receives the changed information and updates the database.

Here is a code example for the first file:

<?php 
// connect to SQL
$dbcnx = @mysql_connect("localhost", "db_name", "password");
if (!$dbcnx) {
  echo( "<P>Unable to connect to the database server at this time.</P>" );
  exit();
}
// connect to database
$dbcon = @mysql_select_db("db_table", $dbcnx);
if (!$dbcon) {
  echo( "<P>Unable to locate DB table at this time.</P>" );
  exit();
}

#data preparation for the query
$id = intval($_GET["id"]);

# selects title and description fields from database
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE id=$id";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());        
# retrieved by using $row['col_name']
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

?>

<h3>Edit</h3>
<form action="save_edit.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" name="myForm" />
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td><b>Title</b></td>
      <td><input type="text" size="70" maxlength="100" name="title" value="<?php echo $row['title'] ?>"></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><b>Description</b></td>
      <td><textarea cols="80" rows="18" name="description"><?php echo $row['description']; ?></textarea></td>
    </tr>
  </table>
  <input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $id; ?>" />
  <input name="enter" type="submit" value="Edit">
</form>

<?php 
mysql_close($dbcnx);
?>

And here is an example of code for the second file where it receives the changes made by the user and updates the database.

<?php
// connect to SQL
$dbcnx = @mysql_connect("localhost", "db_name", "password");
if (!$dbcnx) {
  echo( "<P>Unable to connect to the database server at this time.</P>" );
  exit();
}
// connect to database
$dbcon = @mysql_select_db("db_table", $dbcnx);
if (!$dbcon) {
  echo( "<P>Unable to locate DB table at this time.</P>" );
  exit();
}

#data preparation for the query
$id = intval($_POST["id"]);
foreach ($_POST as $key => $value) $_POST[$key] = mysql_real_escape_string($value);

$sql = "UPDATE table_name SET 
        title='$_POST[title]', 
        description='$_POST[description]', 
        WHERE id=$id";

if (!mysql_query($sql,$dbcnx)) {
  die('Error: ' . mysql_error());
}

mysql_close($dbcnx);
header ("location: http://www.domain.com/url_to_go_to_after_update");
?>