What is the best way to reference an id of a table item?

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Hi all,

 

I have a database with a list of items. Each item has an id (item_id). I display all these items in an HTML table in which each item has a delete button.

 

I would some how need to store the item_id some where so that I would be able to access it when the delete button is pressed...Where could I store it? What would be the best way to approach this problem?

 

Thank you in advance.

[haku]

Depends - are the delete buttons <input>s or <a>s?

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Hi Haku,

 

The delete buttons are <img> currently, I was thinking of creating javascript onClick events to handle the clicks.

 

Lets assume that I'll create the buttons as <a>...how would I go about storing the item_id?

[haku]

<a href="www.example.com?id=23">Delete item 23</a>

 

Notice the id is appended onto the URL. You will need to grab that id on the processing side, and deal with it as fit.

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I am trying to avoid using the ?id=123 in the address bar. Is there another way?

 

I looked at how gmail manages email rows...

 

<div class="yW" id=":p7"><span email="contact@phpfreaks.com" class="yP">PHP Freaks Forums</span> (2)</div>

 

I guess they also have the id in the div tag...hmm...I wonder if they have a function that catches click events and then basically retrieves the id from the item clicked on...do you think this is the case here?

[haku]

Very possible. But impossible to say conclusively without knowing their backend code.

 

You have two options:

1) Use URL rewrite in your .htaccess (apache servers only) so that your url looks like example.com/delete/123 (rewriting the URL to example.com/delete.php?id=123

2) Using a backend PHP solution to read the ID tags as you theorized that google may be doing. In such a case, you should probably open a new thread in the php help section of the forum as it's not HTML at all.

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Thank you