checkbox value

[angelsRock]

hi.. if i have 10 checkbox for customer interest..  how do i save that to database?? need to create 10 fields in the database??  after save.. how to display back when customer view his data..

if i choose swimming.. next time when i view back.. how to show swimming in the checkbox being checked

[recklessgeneral]

Hi,

 

I think probably the easiest way would be to have a field for each interest in your database. As your users are either interested in something or not, I'd set the data type to be a small integer (I use tinyint in mysql), and store 1 if they're interested and 0 otherwise.

 

Next, I imagine your form will look something like the following:

<form name="interests" action="interests.php" method="post">
Swimming: <input type="checkbox" name="swimming" value="1">
... other interests ...
</form> 

 

When the user submits the form, if they clicked the swimming checkbox, $_POST['swimming'] will be set to "1", otherwise it won't be set.

 

$swimming = (isset ($_POST['swimming']) ? 1 : 0);

 

I have used the ?: syntax, which basically will set $swimming to 1 if $_POST['swimming'] has been set, otherwise $swimming is 0.

 

You would extract all interests in a similar way, and build your query based on those values:

 

$query = "INSERT INTO interests (swimming) VALUES ('$swimming')";

 

To display the correct state of the checkboxes, you can use the value based in $swimming to generate the "checked" keyword as part of the checkbox field:

 

<form name="interests" action="interests.php" method="post">
Swimming: <input type="checkbox" name="swimming" value="1"
<?php
if ($swimming == 1)
{
   echo "checked";
}
?>
>
</form>

 

Hope this helps,

Darren.

[angelsRock]

cool.. but in my page for interest... there are more than 25 checkbox .. if i declared each interest as a field in database.. won it be a eyeshore here...!!! ?  this interest is just optional for customer to fill in..!!

also.. if i declare it to different fields... then when customer view back his interest...it will be a problem as it from different fields...

 

i was thinking of storing it into an array. (1,,3,,5,,,,,,) something like this/?

if i do that .. how do i make the checkbox to be checked if the database consist that value..

really thanks

[recklessgeneral]

Hi,

 

I found this article (http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/mysql-set-datatype.html) that covers what you want to do by using a SET data type and storing all user interests in one field. There are pros and cons using this approach, which are discussed, but maybe fine for what you need.

 

Darren.

[Barand]

I'd avoid multiple fields and sets. Better to have separate table, say, customer_interests, with row for each item that they are interested in.

[pre]

customer          cust_interest              interest

-----------      --------------            ----------

custID    --+    id                +-----  interID

cust_name    +--< custID            |      interest

                  interID      >----+

[darkfreaks]

try:

 

<?php

while (list ($key,$val) = @each ($box)) { 
echo "$val,"; 
} 

?>
<form name="interests" action="interests.php" method="post">
Swimming: <input type="checkbox" name="box[]" value="swimming">