Processing Pupil School Register

[Zixtyy]

Hi,

 

I'm working on my Computing project for A2, and I'm a little stuck on working out how to process a bunch of data for a pupil register.

 

At the moment, the process works by the script pulling the classes which a teacher is assigned to, and then the pupils assigned to the class, and displaying them in a table, along with a dropdown box for a mark for the teacher to select, Present, Absent or Late.

 

However, i'm not sure how I can process each line, match it with a specific pupil ID, attach a timestamp and send it off to the database. (As in taking POST data and parsing it into queries.)

 

The code which presents the options is currently:

 

echo "<td><select name='mark-" . $row2['id'] . "'><option value='Present'>Present</option> <option value='Absent'>Absent</option><option value='Late'>Late</option></td>";

 

(Assigns the pupils ID to the select box name)

 

Fields in the attendance table are:

RecordID, PupilID, Day, Month, Year

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[PFMaBiSmAd]

You should use an array for the form field name, with the id as the array's key so that when the $_POST data is submitted you can use php's array function(s) to iterate over the data -

 

name='mark[{$row2['id']}]'

 

This will result in $_POST['mark'] being an array with the key being the id and the value being the option value that was selected.

[Zixtyy]

I..I'm still not sure. Can you clarify what you mean by form field name and array key? (Or spoonfeed me, lol, I'm desperate)

[Barand]

Don't store separate day/month/year - use a TIMESTAMP then it will update automatically.

 

It may also be an idea to hold whether they were present/absent/late in the table

[Zixtyy]

I chose the separate column part so I could easily sort the data for analytics etc (month-by-month attendance rates etc). + I just realised I'd forgotten to type that on the post - it's there really!

[Barand]

Using one of the inbuilt date types does not stop you doing monthly analyses and does give you far greater functionality.

[PFMaBiSmAd]

Can you clarify what you mean by form field name and array key?

 

The post I made above that shows the change for the form field name. To iterate over the submitted data -

 

foreach($_POST['mark'] as $id=>$value){

   // $id will be the original $row2['id'] value and $value will be the selected option's value.

}