Tell me more ×
Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite
2

I am creating a system for my dissertation for a school to use. There's one aspect I can't get working though. I want to be able to set attendance for multiple people all at once. There's an image here that will show you what the form looks like:

multiple attendance form

All values are set to present, so only a couple can be chaged to absent if need be. Once the button is pressed at the bottom of the form, I would like it to navigate to a confirmation page. I have used a MySQl query to get a list of staff members whose attendance has not already been set and used an include tag to place this in an HTML form. The code I have to produce the list is as follows:

<?php
// Get a list of all items and display them in ID order
$dynamicList = "";
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT StaffID, StaffName FROM StaffDetails WHERE StaffID NOT IN (SELECT StaffID FROM StaffAttendance WHERE AttendanceDate = curdate()) ORDER BY StaffID ASC");

// Show list
$productCount = mysql_num_rows($sql);
$setTodaysAttendanceList = "";
if ($productCount > 0) {
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
    $StaffID = $row["StaffID"];
    $StaffName = $row["StaffName"];
    $setTodaysAttendanceList .= '<tr style="font-size:15px;">
  <td><a href="../staff_member_details.php?id=' . $StaffID . '">' . $StaffID . '</a></td>
  <td><a href="../staff_member_details.php?id=' . $StaffID . '">' . $StaffName . '</a></td>
  <td><label>
<select name="attendance_status" id="attendance_status">
<option value="Present">Present</option>
<option value="Absent">Absent</option>
</select>
</label></td>
  <td><label>
<textarea cols="21" rows="5" name="notes" id="notes" placeholder="Enter notes here..."></textarea>
</label></td>
</tr>';
}
} else {
$setTodaysAttendanceList = "There are no records listed at this time";
}
mysql_close();
?>

Then within the HTML I have this:

<form action="set_multiple_staff_attendance_confirm.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="StaffAttendanceForm" id="StaffAttendanceForm" method="post">
    <?php echo $setTodaysAttendanceList; ?>
    <tr style="font-size:15px;">
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td></td>
      <td><label>
      <input type="submit" name="addNewRow" id="addNewRow" value="Add Staff Attendance Records" />
      </label></form></td>
    </tr>

When it redirects to the next page, I have an insert query that looks like this:

<?php
// Add row to database
if (isset($_POST['staff_id'])) {
$staff_id = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['staff_id']);
$attendance_status = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['attendance_status']);
$notes = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['notes']);

$sql .= mysql_query("INSERT INTO StaffAttendance (StaffID, AttendanceDate, AttendanceStatus, Notes) VALUES
('$staff_id', now(), '$attendance_status', '$notes')") or die (mysql_error());
$editid = mysql_insert_id();
}
?>

I know this is a long and convoluted way of asking, but I'm just showing that I've had a go and am completely stuck!

share|improve this question
What is it out of all of this you're actually stuck on? – Ben Apr 9 '12 at 12:19
1  
Why not put the form tag outside the table? Then name the form inputs such that they are prefixed by their row index -- pretty easy to untangle from the back-end with a simple for loop. – David-SkyMesh Apr 9 '12 at 12:27
When you say "row-index" @David-SkyMesh, which variable to you mean? This is my current form tag: <form action="set_multiple_staff_attendance_confirm.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="StaffAttendanceForm" id="StaffAttendanceForm" method="post"> Would you suggest echoing out the PHP variable for the Staff ID? – Zulu Irminger Apr 9 '12 at 12:50
@ZuluIrminger: sure, or do it with JavaScript. – David-SkyMesh Apr 9 '12 at 12:56

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

It looks to me like you are checking for $_POST["staffid"], but your select menus have name="attendance_status" set.

You should rather set the names of your select menus like this:

name="attendance_status[]"

Then in your php script you read an array - not a single value - when you do $_POST["attendance_staff"].

EDIT: This will only work if you also have an array available with all the corresponding staffids. You can get this by using a hidden input for every row whose name is staffid[] and whose value is the staffid.

However, a more reliable way would probably be to use the staffid inside the name of every saveable form element, as David-SkyMesh pointed out in a comment to your post.

EDIT: For example, you could use this code to name your form elements (untested):

<select name="$staffID_attendance_status" id="$staffID_attendance_status">
    <option value="Present">Present</option>
    <option value="Absent">Absent</option>
</select>
<textarea cols="21" rows="5" name="$staffID_notes" id="$staffID_notes" placeholder="Enter notes here..."></textarea>
<input type='hidden' name='staffID[]' value='$staffID'>

Note that this will also give all your form elements unique ids which is necessary if you want your HTML to validate.

Then in your script you could do this:

foreach ($_POST["staffID"] as $staffID) {
    $staff_id = mysql_real_escape_string($staffID);
    $attendance_status = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST[$staff_id . "_attendance_status"]);
    $notes = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST[$staff_id . "_notes"]);

    $sql .= mysql_query("INSERT INTO StaffAttendance (StaffID, AttendanceDate, AttendanceStatus, Notes) VALUES ('$staff_id', now(), '$attendance_status', '$notes')") or die (mysql_error());
    $editid = mysql_insert_id();
}
share|improve this answer
Thank you for your comments. @Ben you're right, I should have been more specific. My problem was was that the data wasn't appearing at the back end database. David-SkyMesh and Stefan that's great thanks, I'll have a look now and let you know if it works! Many thanks, Zulu – Zulu Irminger Apr 9 '12 at 12:34
@ZuluIrminger: OK - I have added some edits with more suggestions on how to do this. – Stefan Apr 9 '12 at 12:57
You guys are amazingly helpful, I'm so grateful! I'll have a go at this in a minute. The way I tried it just now inserted 100,000 blank rows into my database... I'm currently waiting for php myadmin to load them all so I can delete them...! – Zulu Irminger Apr 9 '12 at 13:12
This has worked an absolute dream, and you've helped take a great weight off my shoulders! Thank you so so so much @Stefan and others! – Zulu Irminger Apr 9 '12 at 14:22
@ZuluIrminger: Welcome! – Stefan Apr 9 '12 at 14:27

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.