On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:32:50 +0800, Jason Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tuesday 14 September 2004 18:06, Logan Moore wrote:
> > Ok I think I figured out my own problem. The speechmarks in the Form break
> > up the speech marks in the echo statement so I originally changed the echo
> > statements speechmark to a ' which worked but was informed that this was
> > considered bad syntax and that maybe I should add a \ in front of all
> > speechmarks which are not part of the echo statement.
> 
> It's up to you. IMO, using single quote strings and breaking out when handling
> variables is more readable than using double quote strings and escaping the
> double quote (\").
> 
> > I could still do with an example of how to put the information from the
> > form into the db though. As I have never done this before.
> 
> Plenty of tutorials out there.
> 

First of all, you're making some pretty harsh coding style errors. For
the sake of compatibility, always make sure you're quoting
non-numerical elements in an array, thus: write $_GET['action']
instead of $_GET[action]. Imagine, for example, what would happen if
you've got some field named "public" and you're upgrading to php5? Or
when, in php 5.4 (just saying smth), "action" suddenly becomes a
keyword. You're stuck then with dead code.

Good practice is also to check whether your expected array entry is
actually set. I usually do smth like:

isset($_GET['action']) or $_GET['action'] = 'thedefaultvalue';

or

if (!isset($_GET['action'])) {
  $_GET['action'] = 'thedefalutvalue'];
};

(both do the same, first one is just a lot shorter).

As adviced before, whenever you have to check if a certain variable
has a certain value, and if one of them is true, none of the others
will be true (which is the case with $_GET['action'] checks, usually)
- use the

if ( /* conditions */ ) {
} elseif ( /* other conditions */ ) {
}

method, rather than all seperate if's. I once changed this in somebody
else's code and found the script running about 5 (!!) times faster,
with about 15 conditions.

For inserting into the databas, mysql_connect() and mysql_execute()
are very good options. Or, if you're able to use the PEAR::DB package
I'd advice you to use that. It's more fun to do it that way, and will
help a lot if ever you'd want to change your database server from
mysql to something else (postgres, for example). Ow, and it also helps
a lot with any quoting problem you'd come up with.

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