Hi everyone, I have a problem with a piece of code that I have been working on for the past week. I am new to php; and what I want to do is delete the 'checked' records from the DB.

This is my approach:

PHP Code:

$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result); 
print "<br><br>There are $num_rows records.<P>"; 
print "<table width=200 border=0>\n"; 
while ($get_info = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { 
print "<td><input type=\"checkbox\" value=\"" . $get_info['idtable'] . "\" name=\"check[]\"></td>\n"; 
foreach ($get_info as $field) 
print "\t<td><font face=arial size=1/>$field</font></td>\n"; 
print "</tr>\n"; 
} 
print "</table>\n"; 

echo "<input name=submit type=submit>"; 
} 

if(isset($_POST['submit'])){ 
$ids = implode(',', $_POST["check"]); 
print "<p>List all: $ids</p>"; 
$sql = "DELETE FROM items WHERE idtable IN ($ids)"; 
if($result = mysql_query($sql)) echo "Records deleted!"; //there are as many records deleted as there are checkboxes checked 
} 


The records don't get deleted... when 'submit' is hit, I get 'List all:' to display, but that is all. No other action takes place. What am I doing wrong?

Hi there gartok, this is the exact problem I once had, annoyed the pants off me!! But the solution (annoyingly) is fairly simple!

Basically, we need to get all the information from those checked boxes right? I'm assuming you've used the record ID as the value of each checkbox (but it don't really matter). Below is an example of a HTML tag for a checkbox taken from my own script

<INPUT TYPE=CHECKBOX NAME="selitems[]" VALUE="14">

You should notice the strange square brackets after the name of the checkbox is set, selitems[] (selitems is just shortened from selecteditems, i know, super clever!).

What will happen now, is when the PHP form is submitted, it will place the value of everything that was ticked into the array, selitems[]. Then we need PHP to handle it!.

PHP Code:

foreach($selitems as $val) {
                DeleteData("news_articles", "news_articles_id", "$val");
            } 


We use this loop to go through the $selitems array (note that if global arrays are not on this MUST be $_POST["selitems"]; or $_GET["selitems"]; whatever the send method was) and use it to delete the value in the DB as we want. Each value will be assigned to $val after each loop until it's gone through everything.

Oh yeah, the DeleteData() function won't work for you cause that's a custom function, you just need to replace it with your own SQL Query Code.

I hope this helps you, as I was in a bit of a hurry to go out while posting this!

Thanks for the reply! However, it is a bit confusing for me. I played around with the code a little bit and got it to work by simply changing the . $get_info['idtable'] . to . $get_info[0] .
It seems to work, but I am concerned that it is not the 'proper' way to do it. Would you happen to have any further suggestions?

$get_info is a row of your table, and $get_info['idtable'] would try to pick out the value in that row for the idtable field. Does your table have a field by that name? $get_info[0] will get the first field of that row, so if that's the field you want to use, then this a perfectly correct way to do it.

Yeah, everything works fine. But, I don't understand why it worked with $get_info[0] and it didn't work with $get_info['idtable']? I have the field, and yes it is in the first position.

It's because of the

PHP Code:

while ($get_info = mysql_fetch_row($result)) 


line, when PHP returns the result of the mysql query, it will place it all in an array.

Depending on what you asked for in the SQL statement (for example, SELECT user_id, user_name, user_pass FROM users WHERE user_id = '23') PHP sets the array accordingly. Using the example in the bracket, if we wanted to get the username from the query, all we have to do is $get_info[1]; because it's the second value we asked for (arrays always start from 0).

It would be completely different if it was mysql_fetch_array however, and for that reason I recommend you read the relevant PHP Manual sections on mysql_fetch_array and mysql_fetch_row