Can I have 2 form fields that subit data to same column in Db

[bullbreed]

Hi. Newbie PHP here.

 

I am trying to learn PHP by developing a CMS

I am part way through it but came accross this problem.

 

I am creating a News Article system in the CMS and I want the articles to be associated with a category.

This is so when a user clicks on the NEWS button, all the articles will be sorted by category;

 

I'm not sure how to do this so I did the following.

 

1. Created a column in the database called article_category

2. Created a form Input text box so the user can create a category if it doesnt exist.

3. Created a Input menu field that needs to be populated with existing categories.

 

I know i cant use the same name for these 3 form elements but I dont know how to set this up.

How do I check if the Text Box is filled in to create a category or if a value from the Menu field has been selected and how to put the selected value in to the database.

 

Heres the code I have so far

 

<?php
$submit = $_POST['submit'];

//Form data
$articlesection = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['article_section']);
$articletitle = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['article_title']);
$articleptitle = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['article_ptitle']);
$articlepdescription = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['article_pdescription']);
$articlepkeywords = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['article_pkeywords']);
$articlecontent = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['article_content']);
$date = date('d/m/Y \a\t g:i.s a');

if ($submit){

//Open the database
    mysql_connect("localhost","root","");
    mysql_select_db("*************"); //Select the database

        $pagecheck = mysql_query("SELECT `article_title` FROM articles WHERE `article_title` = '$articletitle'");echo mysql_error();
    $count = mysql_num_rows($pagecheck);echo mysql_error();
    
    if ($count != 0){
        echo("<font size=\"2\" color=\"#ff0000\">Article already exists. Please edit the existing article!</font>");echo mysql_error();
    }else{

        //Check for existing fields
        if ($articlesection && $articletitle && $articleptitle && $articlepdescription && articlepkeywords && $articlecontent && $date){
                
                //Enter into Database
                $queryreg = mysql_query("INSERT INTO articles (`article_section`, `article_title`, `article_ptitle`, `article_pdescription`, `article_pkeywords`, `article_content`, `date`) VALUES ('$articlesection', '$articletitle', '$articleptitle', '$articlepdescription', '$articlepkeywords', '$articlecontent', '$date')");
                echo("<font size=\"2\" color=\"#00cc00\">Your article has been created! </font>");
        }else{
                echo ("<font size=\"2\" color=\"#ff0000\">Please complete <b>ALL</b> fields</font>");
                 }
        }       
}
?>      

 

Here is the form

 

<form action="addarticle.php" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="addarticle" target="_self" id="addarticle">      
<!-- Form Starts -->     
      <div class="titlearea">Add News Article</div>
        <div class="dataarea">
                <div class="infowrap">Article title</div>
                <div class="infowrap">Create Article Section</div>
                <div class="infowrap">Select Article Section</div>
                <div class="infowrap"><input name="article_title" type="text" id="article_title" size="25" maxlength="20" />
                </div>
                <div class="infowrap"><input name="article_section" type="text" id="article_section" size="25" maxlength="100" />
                </div>
                <div class="infowrap">
                <label></label>
                    <label>
                    <select name="article_section" id="article_section">
                      <option><?php echo $row["article_section"]; ?></option>
                                    </select>
                    </label>
                </div>
        </div>
      
      <div class="titlearea">Meta Data</div>
        <div class="dataarea">
                <div class="metawrap">Title - Please use approx 65 characters</div>
                <div class="metawrap"><input name="article_ptitle" type="text" id="article_ptitle" size="80" maxlength="20" />
                </div>
                <div class="metawrap">Description - Please use approx 155 characters inc spaces</div>
            <div class="metawrap"><input name="article_pdescription" type="text" id="article_pdescription" size="80" maxlength="200" />
            </div>
                <div class="metawrap">Keywords - Please use approx 5 keyword per page</div>
                <div class="metawrap"><input name="article_pkeywords" type="text" id="article_pkeywords" size="80" maxlength="200" />
                </div>
        </div>
                 
        <div class="titlearea">Article Content</div>
        <div class="dataarea">
          <textarea name="article_content" cols="80" rows="20" id="article_content"></textarea>
        </div>
        <div class="dataarea">
        <input type="submit" value="Save" name="submit" /></div>
        </form>

 

Any ideas would be a great help

[bullbreed]

Anyone? 

[teamatomic]

ORDER BY birth DESC

SELECT article_title, category FROM articles WHERE article_title = $articletitle ORDER BY category DESC);

 

 

HTH

Teamatomic