asked on

loop

i have connected my database to the web and i use perl to connect it. the problem is the web interface is consists
of 5 fields which the users can choose ay fields to fill in.i do not know which fields the users want to fill in. then i have to parse that data and search in my database the matching data. the loop i do is like this but it is not working:
#$i = 0;
$flag = 0;
$flag1 = 0;
$flag2 = 0;
$flag3 = 0;
$flag4 = 0;
$sql_text = 'SELECT * FROM employee WHERE';
for (@FORM) {
if ($flag == 1)
{
              $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";
$sql_text = $sql_text . 'last';
$sql_text = $sql_text . '=';
$sql_text = $sql_text . "'$FORM{'last'}'";

if ($flag1 == 1)
{        $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";

       $sql_text = $sql_text . 'AND';

$sql_text = $sql_text . " ";
              $sql_text = $sql_text . 'first';
              $sql_text = $sql_text . '=';
            $sql_text = $sql_text . "'$FORM{'first'}'";


                              if ($flag2 == 1)
                               { $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";

                                        $sql_text = $sql_text . 'AND';

                          $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";
                            $sql_text = $sql_text . 'job_title';
                          $sql_text = $sql_text . '=';
                        $sql_text = $sql_text . "'$FORM{'job_title'}'";

            if ($flag3 == 1)

{ $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";

                                                    $sql_text = $sql_text . 'AND';

                                    $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";
                                    $sql_text = $sql_text . 'department';
                                    $sql_text = $sql_text . '=';
                                    $sql_text = $sql_text . "'$FORM{'department'}'";

                        if ($flag4 == 1)

                          { $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";
                                                    $sql_text = $sql_text . 'AND';

                                                         $sql_text = $sql_text . " ";
                                           $sql_text = $sql_text . 'email';
                                           $sql_text = $sql_text . '=';
                                           $sql_text = $sql_text . "'$FORM{'email'}'";


                                                      }


                                                       $flag4 == 1;

                                                }


                                      $flag3 == 1 ;
                                          }


                               $flag2 == 1;
                                    }
$flag1 == 1;

              }

       $flag == 1 ;

}

flag means the data is either entered by the user or not. if it is entered, then i concatenate it with the next field and so on. the problem is, this program is not working.
thank you.
actually i do not know how to control the loop. what i did is like i set the flag to 1 is the user fill in the field. do i need to do else??

ozo

You don't say what "not working" means, but you may be incorrectly assuming that @FORM has some relation to %FORM
The code logic is difficult to follow without indentation but it looks like you may have been intending to do something like:

$sql_text = 'SELECT * FROM employee WHERE ';
$sql_text .= join ' AND ',map "$_='$FORM{$_}'",keys(%FORM);

kudak

ASKER

Edited text of question

ozo

Why are you trying to do a loop at all?
Instead of a loop over
if( $flag3 == 1 ){
if( $flag4 == 1 ){
$sql_text .= " AND email='FORM{'email'}'";
}
$flag4 = 1;
}
$flag3 = 1;
why not
if( $FORM{'department'} ){
$sql_text .= " AND department='FORM{'department'}'";
}
if( FORM{'email' }{
$sql_text .= " AND email='FORM{'email'}'";
}
or just
$sql_text .= join ' AND ',map "$_='$FORM{$_}'", grep defined($FORM{$_}), qw(last first job_title department email)
Or if you want to do a loop, how about
for( qw(last first job_title department email) ){
$sql_text .= " AND $_='FORM{$_}'" if( FORM{$_} );
}

As is, you're loopoing over the elements of the @FORM array,
sucessively seting $_ to each element, but nowhere within your loop
do you deal with either the loop variable $_, nor with @FORM or any of it's elements.
(you do deal with the elements of the %FORM hash, which leads me to suspect
that you may have gotten the idea that they were related somehow)

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

malec

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ozo

Since neither $anyvar nor @parts seem to be used,
I don't see how that could improve anything.

malec

Don't take it literally. Use your vars instead.

ozo

So if your vars are $_ and @FORM, the proposed answer becomes the same as
for( @FORM ){

malec

You're right, ozo. I didn't know "for" also works like that.