Ok, I'm a little stumped with something, I have a playlist script that I wish to use on a number of radio stations, I'm building it so I can share particular playlist songs with other stations for simplicity, in order to do this though, I need to find a way to insert the values from 4 different checkboxes into one row, is that actually possible?

So I have my form..

PHP Code:

Citybeat:<input type="checkbox" name="station" value="citybeat" ><br />
The Bay:<input type="checkbox" name="station" value="thebay" ><br />
Lakeland:<input type="checkbox" name="station" value="lakeland"><br />
Midlands:<input type="checkbox" name="station" value="midlands"><br /> 


One of the suggestions made online was to do the following, no go though..

PHP Code:

Citybeat:<input type="checkbox" name=[]station value="citybeat" ><br />
The Bay:<input type="checkbox" name=[]station value="thebay" ><br />
Lakeland:<input type="checkbox" name=[]station value="lakeland"><br />
Midlands:<input type="checkbox" name=[]station value="midlands"><br /> 


MySQL query is as follows:

PHP Code:

$query = "INSERT INTO playlist (artistname, songname, postdate, synopsis, video, featured, list, station, image) VALUES ('$artistname','$songname','$postdate','$synopsis','$video','$featured','$list','$station','$rand_name.$file_ext')";
mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error()); 


The overall goal is that I can use a url option such as showplaylist.php?station=citybeat

this will then pull from the database using the 'contains' variable..

PHP Code:

$sql="SELECT * FROM playlist WHERE station CONTAINS '$station' ORDER BY id DESC";
$result=mysql_query($sql); 


I hope this makes sense, to be honest, going by my searching so far, I'm not even 100% sure it can be done..

Hope you can help!
Thanks,
Andy

If you use the syntax...

<input type="checkbox" id="station[]" value="whatever" />

Then you will get an array of the checked values (i think...) with the name 'station' and then you can loop through them and add your database rows as you need...

Hi, thanks for your response, that's getting a little further, however, I'm getting an undefined error inserted into my database, as follows

PHP Code:

<br />
<b>Notice</b>:  Undefined variable: station in <b>/var/www/cnradiogroup.co.uk/pets/httpdocs/panel/addsong.php</b> on line <b>237</b><br /> 


However I've defined all variables before that command...

PHP Code:

$artistname = $_POST['artistname'];
$songname = $_POST['songname'];
$postdate = $_POST['postdate'];
$synopsis = $_POST['synopsis'];
$video = $_POST['video'];
$featured = $_POST['featured'];
$list = $_POST['list'];
$station = $_POST['station']; 


veryyy strange!! argh! Thanks so far
Andy

Hi Guys,
I got it to work, it's a little buggy however...

For the form, I used the following...

Citybeat : <input name="station[]" id="station[]" type="checkbox" value="Citybeat">

The Bay : <input name="station[]" id="station[]" type="checkbox" value="thebay">

I pulled it all together using the serialize function

PHP Code:

$station = serialize($_POST['station']); 


and then of course the insert in the database, now, the text that's being insert is as follows...

a:2:{i:0;s:8:"Citybeat";i:1;s:6:"thebay";}

this will and does work anyway using

PHP Code:

$sql="SELECT * FROM playlist WHERE station LIKE '%$station%' ORDER BY id DESC"; 


How would I output a cleaner version of the serialized text before committing it to the database?
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Andy

why dont you just concatenate the array values and then you would lose all the serialising nonsense. Something like...

PHP Code:


$concatenatedStations = "";
foreach( $station as $val )
{
      $concatenatedStations .= $val
} 


You might want to put in some spacing characters or something but ill leave you to put that in!

You're a legend, I got a variation of that working, thanks for your help, much appreciated.

Andy

OMG, why concatenate in THAT way?

PHP Code:

$joined = implode(',', $stations); 


In fact you should use database normalization which include table structure like the following:
songs: id, title, artist, duration, etc
stations: id, name, etc
song_to_station: song_id, station_id, etc
This will allow you to store the data in most correct way and manipulate numeric identifiers instead of strings.