Question

I’m working on a little project, basically I have some text on my PHP/HTML page that is being echo’ed from a variable ($brief_string).

There is also a back, and continue button which basically subtracts or adds to another variable ($brief_page – which is pulled from my DB). The brief_string changes depending on the brief_page by using if statements. First problem I encounter is that when I hit continue (submit button) it resubmits/refreshes the page, causing my brief_page to reset back to 0.

So I’m thinking maybe I could use JS to hold the info and page variables and control the dynamic text, but then, how would I update my DB with the current page value via JS? Isn’t it really easy to manually change/hack these values? I would preferably like my DB to be updated with the page number each time the use presses the back/continue button.

I would just like some advice really as I am a student trying to develop an interactive book like site (that uses a DB to save your current page).

Code:

<?
$brief_info = "brief info goes here";
$brief_page = 0; //< will soon be pulled off DB

if (isset($_GET['brief1Go'])) {
    $brief_page = $brief_page + 1;
}
else if (isset($_GET['brief1Back'])) {
    $brief_page = $brief_page - 1;
}


$breifController = "
    <form action=\"".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']."\" method=\"POST\">
        <input type=\"submit\" name=\"brief1Back\" id=\"brief1Back\" value=\"BACK\" />
    </form>

    <form action=\"".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']."\" method=\"POST\">
        <input type=\"submit\" name=\"brief1Go\" id=\"brief1Go\" value=\"CONTINUE\" />
    </form>";



if($brief_page == 0){
    $brief1_info = "<b>Welcome Commander,</b> you are currently viewing the Mission Control Brief page, here you can view all your missions that you need to complete in order to advance through your prestiges. You will need to follow your briefs carefully in order to succeed. <br /><br />

    ";
}
else if($brief_page == 1){
    $brief_info = "Okay, let me show you around the place ...";
}
else if($brief_page == 2){
    $brief_info = "brief is on 2";
}

?>

Answer 1

Why not just use get vars entirely?

yes, start at 0 unless $_GET[‘page’] is set…

$brief_page = 0;
if(isset($_GET['page']))
    $brief_page = $_GET['page'];

then only use links to your next and previous pages instead of some weird post thing.

<a href="/somefile.php?page=<?php echo $prev; ?>">Previous</a> <a href="/somefile.php?page=<?php echo $next; ?>">Next</a>

where obviously the page numbers in the previous and next are just echoed from php

$prev = $brief_page - 1;
$next = $brief_page + 1;

The user specific things to store can easily be handled with sesisons, cookies or even other get vars if you want to introduce a horrible security hole. Your choice really.
I would definitely not do this via $_POST though. totally annoying. Go with all full on ajax if you want to do that. At least you won’t pester the user with “are you sure you want to resubmit the form data” messages if they choose to refresh the page.