Inserting into lookup_skills
Now that we have the code to create the form, we need to be able to store the skills that the user checks off. In the make_checkbox_html function above, we called the name
of each checkbox element
rows into the lookup_skills table. If the person filling out the form clicks 5 skills, we insert 5 rows into the lookup_skills table. Remember that each row in the lookup_skills
table has a user id number and a skill number. In the example of the site I gave, users log in and then they can create/edit their profile. You would probably register their
userid number as a session variable when they log in, but how you manage userids is beyond the scope of this article. In the code below, we will just assume that we have access to
the userid in a variable called $uid. So here are some functions to do the insert:
of each checkbox element
skills[]. The “[]” specify that we will get access to the checked elements in an array. So, all we have to do is run through the array and insertrows into the lookup_skills table. If the person filling out the form clicks 5 skills, we insert 5 rows into the lookup_skills table. Remember that each row in the lookup_skills
table has a user id number and a skill number. In the example of the site I gave, users log in and then they can create/edit their profile. You would probably register their
userid number as a session variable when they log in, but how you manage userids is beyond the scope of this article. In the code below, we will just assume that we have access to
the userid in a variable called $uid. So here are some functions to do the insert:
<?php
/* the function we call to insert.
the $skills argument is the skills array that
is sent to the script when the user hits the submit button
*/
function insert_skills($uid, $skills) {
/* first, we'll delete any entries this user already has
in the table */
purge_lookup("lookup_skills", $uid);
/* now create the sql insert query */
$query = create_checkbox_query($skills, "lookup_skills", $uid);
/* execute the query */
mysql_query($query);
}
/* helper function for insert_skills().
removes all rows in $table with $uid */
function purge_lookup($table, $uid) {
$q = "DELETE FROM $table, WHERE uid = '$uid'";
mysql_query($q);
}
/* helper function for insert_skills().
generates the sctual SQL query */
function create_checkbox_query($arr, $table, $uid) {
$q = "INSERT INTO $table (uid, skill_id) VALUES";
foreach ($arr as $check) {
$q .= " ( $uid , $check )" . ",";
}
/* remove the last comma and return */
return substr($q, 0, -1);
}
?>
That is pretty much all there is to inserting. You now know how to create your form easily by reading from your const_skills table and you also know how to store the users
skill selections by simply inserting rows into the lookup_skills table. So now what do you do? Lets look at how to search.
skill selections by simply inserting rows into the lookup_skills table. So now what do you do? Lets look at how to search.
