problems generating "checked" checkboxes from a MySQL generated list of checkboxes.

Question

I am generating a group of check-boxes from a MySQL database with this code.

$connection=mysql_connect ("localhost", "foo", "bar") or die ("I cannot connect to the database.");
$db=mysql_select_db ("database", $connection) or die (mysql_error());
$query = "SELECT type FROM typelist ORDER BY type ASC";
$sql_result = mysql_query($query, $connection) or die (mysql_error());
i=1;
echo "<table valign="top"><tr><td>";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql_result)) {
$type = $row["type"];
if ($i > 1 && $i % 26 == 0) 
echo '</td><td>'; 
else if ($i) 
echo ''; 
++$i; 
echo "<input style='font-size:10px;' name='type[]' type='checkbox' value='$type'><span style='color:#000;'>$type</span></input><br/>";}
echo '</td></tr></table>';

I'm parsing the array and dumping the values as comma separated text into a database with this block of code.

$allTypes = $_POST['allTypes'];
  var_dump($allTypes);


  $allStyles = "";


  foreach ($type as $style) {

    $allTypes .= $style . ", ";
  }


  $allTypes = substr($allTypes, 0, -2);

It works great. My problem is on the edit record page. I'm generating the list as before, but this time I need to have the check boxes "checked" if that checkbox item had been entered into the database.

How do I alter the first block of code to do this?

Answer 1

The code you say generates a list of checkboxes.....well, doesn't generate a list of checkboxes. No where in your codes do I see an input tag. My question to you is, how are you making these checkboxes?

Answer 2

You can do it in two ways (or more, but theese are the easyest ones).

Javascript method:

If you already have assigned id's to the checkboxes, this is the easyest way.

    document.getElementById('idOfCheckbox').checked='checked';

PHP method:

You have to modify the string $row[type]. Insert checked="checked" just before the closingtag. This can be done in various ways, but play a little around with it (or just use the code below (it's untested though)).

    $row[type] = substr($row[type], 0, strlen($row[type]) - 2) . 'checked="checked" />';

But you haven't done it easy for youself but storing the checkboxes in a database... Why have you even done that, it makes no sense??