Re: Required fields in a form?

Erica Douglass wrote: > > Agh... still having problems... > > Alright. Following Joe's example, I rewrote the code to get the required > fields from the database. That works fine. My problem is that when a field > is blank, nothing is written into the value part of the array for that key, > so I get a PHP warning when trying to submit my form. For reference > purposes, $f is my form field array. $f works just fine. It just doesn't > set values for blank fields. > > Here is my code: > > $query = "select field_name from form_fields where > required=\"yes\""; > $result = mysql_query ($query) or die ("The server is down. Here's > what MySQL said: " . mysql_error()); Here's a few pointers to shorten your code and speed things up. Take the following five lines: > $required_fields = array(); > while ($row = mysql_fetch_array ($result)) { > $field_name = $row['field_name']; > array_push ($required_fields, $field_name); > }; And turn them into these three lines: while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { $required_fields[] = $row[0]; } Also note, I ditched the ";" after the "}" since it's unnecessary. > function check_for_errors($f){ > while(list($key,$val) = each($f)) { > if(!strlen($val) && in_array($key,$required_fields)) { > ... snip o rama ... > This error message pops up for every field that is blank: Warning: Wrong > datatype for second argument in call to in_array() in /path/to/file on line 139 I'd invert your procedure here. You should loop through your $required array and check the form's contents based on that. This protectes you against someone altering the form and omitting a required field all together. This also has the added benefit of only having one thing to evaluate in your if statement. while(list($key,$val) = each($required)) { if(!strlen($f[$val])) { Another thing, looks like the code that's in the check_for_errors() function can just be stand alone code, w/o a function. This will (slightly) improve performance. Enjoy, --Dan -- PHP scripts that make your job easier http://www.analysisandsolutions.com/code/ SQL Solution | Layout Solution | Form Solution T H E A N A L Y S I S A N D S O L U T I O N S C O M P A N Y 4015 7 Ave, Brooklyn NY 11232 v: 718-854-0335 f: 718-854-0409