Question

I’ve been messing with this for a while and I’m nearly there. Just need to get past this wall I’ve hit.

I have the following tables:

tracks (trackid, tracktitle, albumid, composerid)
albums (albumid, albumname)
composers (composerid, composername)

I can insert a new record via PhpMyAdmin SQL tab with

INSERT INTO tracks (tracktitle, albumid, composerid) VALUES ('New Song', 1, 1);

and it works fine.

My PHP form though isn’t doing the same thing and I must have overlooked something.
Please can someone check out the code for my addtrack page and tell me what is wrong?

 if (isset($_POST['tracktitle'])): 
 // A new track has been entered
 // using the form.

 $cid= $_POST['cid'];
 $tracktitle = $_POST['tracktitle'];
 $albs = $_POST['albs'];

 if ($cid == '') {
 exit('<p>You must choose an composer for this track. 
 Click "Back" and try again.</p>');
  }

  $sql = "INSERT INTO tracks SET
  tracks.tracktitle='$tracktitle'" ;
  if (@mysql_query($sql)) {
  echo '<p>New track added</p>';
  } else {
  exit('<p>Error adding new track' . mysql_error() . '</p>');
  }

  $trackid = mysql_insert_id();

  if (isset($_POST['albs'])) {
   $albs = $_POST['albs'];
   } else {
   $albs = array();
   }

  $numAlbs = 0;
  foreach ($albs as $albID) {
  $sql = "INSERT IGNORE INTO tracks (trackid, albumid, 
  composerid) VALUES " . 
"($trackid, $albs, $cid)";

if ($ok) {
  $numAlbs = $numAlbs + 1;
} else {
  echo "<p>Error inserting track into album $albID: " .
      mysql_error() . '</p>';
}
}
 ?>

<p>Track was added to <?php echo $numAlbs; ?> albums.</p>

 <p><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>">Add another 
 track</a></p>
 <p><a href="tracks.php">Return to track search</a></p>

 <?php
 else: // Allow the user to enter a new track

 $composers = @mysql_query('SELECT composerid, composername 
 FROM composers');
  if (!$composers) {
 exit('<p>Unable to obtain composer list from the 
database.</p>');
 }

$albs = @mysql_query('SELECT albumid, albumname FROM albums');
 if (!$albs) {
 exit('<p>Unable to obtain album list from the 
 database.</p>');
 }
 ?>

 <form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" 
 method="post">
 <p>Enter the new track:<br />
 <textarea name="tracktitle" rows="1" cols="20">
 </textarea></p>
 <p>Composer:
 <select name="cid" size="1">
  <option selected value="">Select One</option>
  <option value="">---------</option> 
  <?php
   while ($composer= mysql_fetch_array($composers)) {
    $cid = $composer['composerid'];
    $cname = htmlspecialchars($composer['composername']);
    echo "<option value='$cid'>$cname</option>\n";
     }
    ?>
    </select></p>
    <p>Place in albums:<br />
   <?php
   while ($alb = mysql_fetch_array($albs)) {
    $aid = $alb['albumid'];
    $aname = htmlspecialchars($alb['albumname']);
     echo "<label><input type='checkbox' name='albs[]'
    value='$aid' />$aname</label><br />\n";
    }
   ?>

Once I have this sorted, I can move on to expanding it and also sorting out the security issues. Someone on here recommended I look into PDO’s which are a new thing to me.
But one hurdle at a time….

Thanks

Answer 1

Your INSERT syntax is incorrect. You are trying to INSERT using an UPDATE syntax.

You are trying:

INSERT INTO table_name SET field_name = '$value', another_field_name = '$another_value'

But you should be doing:

INSERT INTO table_name (
    field_name,
    another_field_name
)
VALUES (
    '$value',
    '$another_value'
)

Also, you really should be using addslahes(), like this:

INSERT INTO table_name (
    field_name,
    another_field_name
)
VALUES (
    '".addslashes($value)."',
    '".addslashes($another_value)."'
)

Otherwise your code is easier to hack than a boiled potato. 🙂

EDIT: Chad Birch (below) suggests rather using parameterized values, which admittedly is better than addslashes(). I honestly didn’t know PHP had those already.