loop through $_GET results

Question

Hi,

If I had something like this:

?FormSub=Submit&qty=1&partno=ipod&notes=apple&unitprice=102.99&rowid=1&qty=2&partno=Ear+Buds&notes=Headphones&unitprice=45.99&rowid=2

Is it possible to loop through the GET's to return results into a HTML table and also add to a SQL table?

Or would I need to add the rowid to then end of every $_GET (i.e. qty1=1&partno1=ipod...)?

Thanks for looking.

Answer 1

You can loop through $_GET though. It's just an array:

foreach ($_GET as $key => $value) { }

When you go through to make your SQL queries, remember to sanitize all of your inputs. Likewise for displaying values on the page. Use htmlentities to sanitize for HTML display. Assuming your database is MySQL, use mysql_real_escape_string for SQL.

Answer 2

$_GET is an array .. so you can just iterate over it using foreach

foreach($_GET as $query_string_variable => $value) {
   echo "$query_string_variable  = $value <Br />";
}

you can also do extract($_GET) to make all of them as variable .. but I wont suggest it.

If you want to save it to db you should consider mysql_real_escape_string($value).

To print a HTML table .. do you want something like this ??

$count = count($_GET);
if($count > 0) {
  echo "<table>";
    foreach($_GET as $query_string_variable => $value) {
       echo "<tr><td>$query_string_variable</td><td>$value</td></tr>"
    }
  echo "</table>";
}

hope this helps.

Answer 3

See the FAQ How do I create arrays in a HTML <form>?

So in your case a request of:

?FormSub=Submit&qty[]=1&partno[]=ipod&notes[]=apple&unitprice[]=102.99&rowid[]=1&qty[]=2&partno[]=Ear+Buds&notes[]=Headphones&unitprice[]=45.99&rowid[]=2

would create an array of the form:

array(
    'FormSub' => 'Submit',
    'qty' => array(
        0 => '1',
        1 => '2'
    ),
    'partno' => array(
        0 => 'ipod',
        1 => 'Ear Buds'
    ),
    'notes' => array(
        0 => 'apple',
        1 => 'Headphones'
    ),
    'unitprice' => array(
        0 => '102.99',
        1 => '45.99'
    ),
    'rowid' => array(
        0 => '1',
        1 => '2'
    )
)

But I hope you don’t accept those values without validation or even use it for an actual order.

Additionally GET is intended to be used for data retrieval only:

In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action other than retrieval.

For requests with side effects (alteration of data on the server) you should use POST.

Answer 4

watch out! someone could easily alter this and submit:

?FormSub=Submit&qty=1&partno=ipod&notes=apple&unitprice=0.99&rowid=1&qty=2&partno=Ear+Buds&notes=Headphones&unitprice=0.05&rowid=2

note: "unitprice" was 102.99 and 45.99, but have been changed to 0.99 and 0.05, I guess they are on sale now at a great price!