Question

Thanks for taking the time to look at this question.

Currently, I have a piece of code that creates four checkboxes labeled as “Luxury, Brand, Retailer,” and “B2B.” I have looked into a number of PHP methods to create checkboxes, and I felt the implode() function was the most simple and suitable for my job. I have looked into a number of tutorials to create the implosions, however, they did not fit my criteria, as I would like the database values be reflected in the front-end. Currently in my database, the implode() works, therefore (for example), if I check “Luxury”, “Brand”, “Retailer”, and press the “Submit” button, the three items “Luxury, Brand, Retailer” will be in that specified cell. It looks like my code works in the back-end, but these are my issues:

1. I am not exactly sure (despite multiple Googles) how to retrieve those values stored in the single-cell array, and have it selected as “selected” (this would “check” the box in the front-end)

Could someone kindly take a look at my code below and let me know what seems to be missing/wrong/erroneous so I could attempt the revisions? Anything would be appreciated, thank you!

<?

if (isset($_POST['formSubmit2'])){
    $category = mysql_real_escape_string(implode(',',$_POST['category']));
    $accountID = $_POST['accountID'];

    mysql_query("UPDATE Spreadsheet SET category='$category' WHERE accountID='$accountID'");
}


$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Spreadsheet LIMIT $firstRow,$rpp");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)){  

// Begin Checkboxes

$values = array('Luxury','Brand','Retailer','B2B');

  ?>

<form name ="category" method ="POST" action ="" >

 <?

echo "<input type = 'hidden' name = 'accountID' value = '" . $row['accountID'] . "' >";
        for($i = 0; $i < count($values); $i++){
 ?>

 <input type="checkbox" name="category[]" value="<?php echo $values[$i]; ?>" id="rbl_<? echo $i; ?>" <? if($row['category'] == $i) echo "checked=\"checked\""; ?>/>
 <? echo $values[$i] ?><br>

 <? } ?>

        <input type ="Submit" name ="formSubmit2" value ="Submit" />
        </form>

 <? } ?>

Answer 1

The best approach i can recommend given what you have is to, explode the values out of the db giving you a new array of all the select fields. Then use in_array to compare the list you have with this new list in the loop. then flag the checkboxs as needed.