Ugh! That's looks like it could get ugly to maintain.
What I would do is store your tasks in a table so when you want to add
a task, you just add a record. You would then select the tasks from the
table and build the check boxes from the list you got from the table.
$checkBoxGrid = 'span class=bodyBoldGeneral Kitchen Help/spanbr
/';
foreach($task as $taskName) {
$checkBoxGrid .= 'input type=checkbox name=kitchen['.$taskName.']
value='.$taskName.'';
}
Now you have your lists of checkboxes for which the code never needs to
change as you add or remove tasks. Also, the code is the same for new
entries or modifying existing entries. You then want to check the
appropriate boxes, which you can do with a simple search and replace
based on the serialized array that contains which boxes were checked.
foreach($task as $taskName) {
$checkBoxGrid = str_replace('name=kitchen['.$taskName.']',
'name=kitchen['.$taskName.'] CHECKED', $checkBoxGrid);
}
What you are doing is searching on the name=kitchen[task] string,
which should be unique and replacing with an appended CHECKED. The
key is not to echo anything out, but to build things up in the
$checkBoxGrid variable so you can modify it and deliver it when
necessary. So altogether, that's about a half a dozen lines of code
that you never need to change when you add or remove check boxes. You
would probably need a couple of more lines to handle task categories,
which should also be pulled from a table.
On Aug 17, 2004, at 1:37 PM, Hutchins, Richard wrote:
I am developing a page where people check off items for which they
would
like to volunteer. For now, this page has around 50 checkboxes on it,
but it
could conceivably change frequently and grow much larger than the
current 50
items once it goes live.
I have all of the checkboxes arranged into nice little arrays and named
things like name=kitchen[waitstaff] and name=kitchen[cook],
name=professional[paint]. I take the checked boxes, serialize them,
and
store them in columns in MySQL that bear the same name as the array
(e.g.,
kitchen, professional). All of this works fine and I'm very happy with
it.
Now, when the person revisits the page to update his/her selections, I
query
the database and unserialize the column data. I then search the
resulting
array and if the name of the checkbox is found in the array, I echo
checked to select the checkbox. See below:
snip
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($curRecord)){
$vid=$row[vid];
$pID=$row[pID];
$kitchen = unserialize($row[kitchen]);
$kitchenevt = unserialize($row[kitchenevt]);
$profesional = unserialize($row[professional]);
.
.
.
}
//BUNCHA' IRRELEVENT STUFF CUT OUT OF HERE
span class=bodyBoldGeneral Kitchen Help/spanbr
?php
echo input type=\checkbox\ name=\kitchen[waitstaff]\;
if(in_array(waitstaff,$kitchen)){
echo checked;
}
echo nbsp;span
class=\body\Waiter/Waitress/spanbr;
echo input type=\checkbox\ name=\kitchen[cook]\;
if(in_array(cook,$kitchen)){
echo checked;
}
echo nbsp;span class=\body\Cook/spanbr;
.
.
.
//AND SO ON FOR EVERY SINGLE CHECKBOX.
?
/snip
So, having set up a sample section of checkboxes on my page using the
logic
in the snippet above, I am wondering if there is a much more efficient
way
to look at the arrays that get returned from the database, check to
see if
the given checkbox is contained therein, then, if it is, echo
checked. The
solution snippet above works just fine, but whenever I find myself
contemplating doing the same thing over and over in code, that's
obviously a
flag for investigating an iterative solution.
Right now, though, I'm struggling with trying to noodle out whether
setting
up some sort of iterative function would be more work than simply
doing what
I'm doing now. Obviously, iteration is always great for handling
repetitive
work, but I'm just not having much luck coming up with a solution.
I am aware that this is probably slightly off-topic since it isn't a
direct
php/db question, but I was hoping somebody might be kind enough to
offer up
suggestions as to how I might construct such a solution anyway.
Thanks in advance for you time.
Rich
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Brent Baisley
Systems Architect
Landover Associates, Inc.
Search Advisory Services for Advanced Technology Environments
p: 212.759.6400/800.759.0577
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