asked on

Combine form values to populate a field in MySQL

I want to combine several posted fields and make it the value for a single field. Below is what I have tested with no luck.

<tr>
    	<td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><label>* Gender</label></td>
        <td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><input type="text" name="gender" value="<?php echo @$user['gender']?>"></td>
   	</tr>
    <tr>
    	<td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><label>* Year of Birth</label></td>
        <td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><input type="text" name="dob" value="<?php echo @$user['dob']?>"></td>
   	</tr>
    <tr>
    	<td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><label>* Country</label></td>
        <td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><input type="text" name="country" value="<?php echo @$user['country']?>"></td>
   	</tr>
    <tr>
    	<td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><label>* Postal Code</label></td>
        <td style="padding:10px;border:1px solid"><input type="text" name="zip" value="<?php echo @$user['zip']?>"></td>
   	</tr>

<? $mpxid = @$user['dob'].@$user['country'].@$user['zip']; ?>

<input type="hidden" name="combine" value="<?php echo $mpxid; ?>">

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Dave Baldwin

When you put the '@' in front of something like '@$user' in PHP, errors are not reported but they are Not prevented. You should remove all of the '@' in your code and put 'error_reporting(E_ALL);' at the top of the page so you can see what errors are occurring so you can fix them.

And you are using '<?' in one place and '<?php' in another place for opening tags. I recommend that you be consistent and use '<?php' in all places.

Ray Paseur

+1 for Dave's comment about error_reporting() and the short-open tag.

PHP also allows for short open tag <? which is discouraged since it is only available if enabled...

The safe way is to always use the explicit tag, and always avoid the close-php tag and other anti-practices, wherever possible.

See also: http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.short-open-tag

HEREDOC notation is useful for templates like this.

Before you spend too long on this, make sure you have the variable values you expect. You can use PHP var_dump($user) to print out the $user array.

The timeline of the request and response may be in play here, too. When does $user get populated with its data?

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William Nettmann

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SOLUTION

Ray Paseur

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edavo

ASKER

Used Javascript and it worked. Pulled values from forms, did a simple "combined = a+b+c."

xmpxid = a + b + c + d;
document.getElementById('xmpxid').value = xmpxid;
then......
<input type="hidden" name="mpxid" id="xmpxid">

Thank You all - dM