Confused.. I am a starter!

[rockinaway]

I was wondering is there any way I can check to see if a link has been clicked. As I am making a memberlist page with alphabetical letter sorting and I want to check if a user has clicked a letters link to sort... how can I do this?

[papaface]

You could use GET. When someone clicks sort by something make the URL somepage.php?sort=alpha
Then make a script or implement it into an existing one, to sort the data alphabetically by getting $_GET['sort'].

[rockinaway]

I have listed the alphabet and made a link in a variable for each letter...

I have ?sortal after my file name.. so what would I do.. if I wanted to check it in an IF statement?

[code]if ($_GET['sortal'])
{}[/code]

Sorry if I am stupid and dumb..

[GingerRobot]

So you have links similar to <a href="yourpage.php?sortal=a">A</a> etc?

Well then this is how i would do it:

<?php
$letter = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['sortal']);//using mysql_real_escape_string to prevent any malicous use of the sort
$sql = "SELECT * FROM `yourtable` WHERE `userfield` LIKE '$letter%'";
mysql_query($sql) or die (mysql_error());
?>

You use LIKE to allow you to place wildcard matches in your search term. A % siginfies any number of any character, and an underscore is used for one character of any type. Here, you want the letter that has been selected followed by any number of other characters. If no letter has been selected, then you would have a searchterm of just % in which case all results would be found.

[rockinaway]

When I try that I get 'Notice: Undefined index: sortal'

What do I do now?

to add here is an example of the link..

$sortbyal = '<a href="domain.com/file.php?sortal='.chr($var).'">A</a>

[trq]

You need to wrap the code within an if statement, $_GET['sortal'] will only exist if the link has been clicked. So...

[code]
<?php
  if (isset($_GET['sortal'])) {
    $letter = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['sortal']);//using mysql_real_escape_string to prevent any malicous use of the sort
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM `yourtable` WHERE `userfield` LIKE '$letter%'";
    if ($result = mysql_query($sql)) {
      if (mysql_num_rows($result)) {
        while ($row = mysql_fetach_assoc($result))
          echo $row['username']."<br />";
        }
      }
    }
  }
?>
[/code]

Ive also extended the query a little to actually display the data.

[rockinaway]

[code] LIKE '.$sortal%'');[/code]

I get an error in SQL Syntax

Also another thing, once the person has clicked and gone to the new page I want the click to be reset so the changes that occur from clicking do not occur again until they click..

[trq]

It should be...

[code]
LIKE '.$letter%'');
[/code]

[rockinaway]

Same problem.. it needs the second . else it doesn't seem to work without error.

Also another thing, once the person has clicked and gone to the new page I want the click to be reset so the changes that occur from clicking do not occur again until they click..