[SOLVED] Can I do this?

[thewarchief]

Hello, my friends and I are attempting to write some PHP code. We have never done this before and are essentially teaching ourselves. We are trying to write:

 

<form id="formTextBox1" name="form1TextBox1" method="post" action="">
<INPUT type="text" value="" name"txtInput" id="txtInput" />

<?php
session_start();
extract($_POST);
print($txtInput);

$linkTextBox1 = mysql_pconnect("pdb2.awardspace.com", "albert123_lotto", "lotto")

or die("pconnectfailed!" .mysql_error());

mysql_select_db("albert123_lotto", $linkTextBox1)

or die("unable to select db" .mysql_error());

$sqlTextBox1 = "UPDATE store_'.$store_num.'_inv SET serialStart = '$txtInput' WHERE lottoName = '$selectResult'";
$resultTextBox1 = mysql_query($sqlTextBox1, $linkTextBox1);

if(!$resultTextBox1){
echo mysql_error();
exit;
}
mysql_free_result($resultTextBox1);
mysql_close();
?>
</SELECT>
</FORM>   

 

and nothing will show up on the page. I am fairly certain that it has to do with this line:

 

$sqlTextBox1 = "UPDATE store_'.$store_num.'_inv SET serialStart = '$txtInput' WHERE lottoName = '$selectResult'";

 

More specifically, I am unsure if we are able to use a variable in the middle of a table name. Thank you for any information given.

[btherl]

Yes you can use a variable in a table name but you should do it in one of these ways:

 

$sqlTextBox1 = "UPDATE store_".$store_num."_inv SET serialStart = '$txtInput' WHERE lottoName = '$selectResult'";
$sqlTextBox1 = "UPDATE store_{$store_num}_inv SET serialStart = '$txtInput' WHERE lottoName = '$selectResult'";

 

The reason it won't work the same way as your other variables there is that the "_" character within the table name confuses php.  The {} symbols protect the variable so it can be placed next to an underscore and not confuse php.

 

BTW, having a table for each store number is almost certainly bad database design.  It's usually better to have store number as a column in your table.