[SOLVED] Please help! I need to compare variable against database field...

[fatherthespis]

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you for your patience on this one...I have never coded PHP in my life, but am trying to hack away at it for a current project I'm working on. This will probably be a completely dumb question, but I would tremendously appreciate any assistance...I've been stuck now on this one point for three days and have pulled out half my head of hair. ;-)

 

Here's what I'm trying to do. I have a variable coming into my script via a post operation. That variable ($fromFlash) is being sent to the script from a Flash movie and just contains a website URL. I have a MySQL database containing the names of organizations with their website addresses. I need to compare my variable against that database, to see if there is a match for the website address contained in the variable; if there is a match, I need to pull the record and send the organization's name back to my Flash movie -- if there is no match, I need to send an error message.

 

So far, I have this code:

 

<?php require_once('../../../Connections/dbTFM.php');

if (!function_exists("GetSQLValueString")) {
function GetSQLValueString($theValue, $theType, $theDefinedValue = "", $theNotDefinedValue = "") 
{
  $theValue = get_magic_quotes_gpc() ? stripslashes($theValue) : $theValue;

  $theValue = function_exists("mysql_real_escape_string") ? mysql_real_escape_string($theValue) : mysql_escape_string($theValue);

  switch ($theType) {
    case "text":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;    
    case "long":
    case "int":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? intval($theValue) : "NULL";
      break;
    case "double":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . doubleval($theValue) . "'" : "NULL";
      break;
    case "date":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;
    case "defined":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? $theDefinedValue : $theNotDefinedValue;
      break;
  }
  return $theValue;
}
}

mysql_select_db($database_dbTFM, $dbTFM);
$query_rsTFMGroup = "SELECT fdOrgNameFull, fdOrgNameAbbr, fdWebsite, fdTFMLink FROM tblGroupData";
$rsTFMGroup = mysql_query($query_rsTFMGroup, $dbTFM) or die(mysql_error());
$row_rsTFMGroup = mysql_fetch_assoc($rsTFMGroup);
$totalRows_rsTFMGroup = mysql_num_rows($rsTFMGroup);

$fromFlash = $_POST['toPHP'];
$toFlash = "&toFlash=";
$grpName = "&grpName=";
$webLink = "&webLink=";
$toFlash .= $fromFlash;
$siteURL .= $row_rsTFMGroup['fdWebsite'];
if ( $fromFlash != $siteURL ) {
	$grpName .= "THIS IS NOT A TAPS FAMILY WEBSITE";
	$webLink .= "#";
} else {
	$grpName .= $row_rsTFMGroup['fdOrgNameAbbr'];
	$webLink .= $row_rsTFMGroup['fdTFMLink'];
}
echo $toFlash;
echo $grpName;
echo $webLink;

mysql_free_result($rsTFMGroup);
?>

 

As you can see, this code is not really comparing my incoming variable against the database at all...it compares it only against the first record, so unless a particular organization happens to be the first record in my database the code doesn't work. I guessed that I should be using a "while" loop, but must have messed that up because all of my variables were coming back "undefined."

 

If anyone could help me out even just by pointing me in the right direction, I would appreciate it more than you could know.

 

Very best wishes,

 

Eric Ewing

[Wildbug]

You need a WHERE condition in your SQL query.  It needs to be something like:

 

$query = "SELECT fdOrgNameFull, fdOrgNameAbbr, fdWebsite, fdTFMLink FROM tblGroupData WHERE whateverColumn = '$yourvalue'";

 

MySQL tutorial on selecting particular rows:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/selecting-rows.html

 

You might not be looking for an exact value.  If you need a substring match, see the LIKE and REGEXP operators in MySQL.

[fatherthespis]

Ah-ha! That was exactly it...I thought I was overlooking something basic. Thanks so very much for your assistance.

 

Best wishes,

 

Eric