populate php form fields with mysql array (on click)

Question

I'm a php/mysql newbie, working on an invoicing application. I have a summary.php page, in which I'm using php to query a db and render a table with the retrieved data:

< ?php
    mysql_connect ... [ snip ] ...

    // retrieve all data in the 'Invoices' table ...
    $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Invoices") or die(mysql_error());
    // ... and store each record in a variable:
    $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

and my table is:

<table class="record-summary">
    <form action="/edit.php" method="post">
    <tr>
        <th ... 
        [ snip: more table headers ] ...

<?php
    $controls = "<input type=\"submit\" value=\"details.php\" /><input type=\"submit\" value=\"edit.php\" />";
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
        {
        echo "<tr>";
            echo "<td class=\"id\">". $row['ID']. "</td>";
            echo "<td class=\"inv\">". $row['invoiceNumber']. "</td>";
            [ snip: more data cells ] ...
            echo "<td class=\"controls\">". $controls . "</td>";

The last cell (td.controls) in each row contains two submits, one linking to a detail view (details.php), the other to a form page (edit.php). My objective is to populate either page with the values of the record/row. Where I need help is how exactly to use the $row variable to carry this array to e.g., edit.php, and populate the fields in the form (actually I'm fairly certain I have the syntax for the form inputs' value attributes). Both details.php and edit.php have all the data fields in the record represented, though in summary.php only a portion of the fields are displayed (ergo, 'summary.php'). So my questions are:

How do I ensure that when either button is clicked, the $row contains the values of the given record, and how to push the array into either details.php or edit.php?

Many thanks in advance,

src

Answer 1

You can pass the ID to edit.php and details.php but without the form just with two links to edit.php?id=and details.php?id=:

<?php
    // $controls = "<input type=\"submit\" value=\"details.php\" /><input type=\"submit\" value=\"edit.php\" />"; <-- is not necessary
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
    {
        echo "<tr>";
        echo "<td class=\"id\"><a href=\"details.php?id=". $row['ID']. "\">details.php</a> | <a href=\"edit.php?id=". $row['ID']. "\">edit.php</a></td>";
        echo "<td class=\"inv\">". $row['invoiceNumber']. "</td>";
        // [ snip: more data cells ] ...
        // echo "<td class=\"controls\">". $controls . "</td>"; <-- is not necessary

You can grab the data using the id:

//....
if (isset($_GET['id']) && is_numeric($_GET['id']))
{
    $id = $_GET['id'];
}
else
{
    die("There is no id.");
}

$sql = sprintf("SELECT * FROM Invoices WHERE id = %s", $id);
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());

$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);