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Posted by ELINTPimp on 09/04/07 16:54
On Sep 4, 11:36 am, Kevin Davis <kevin.da...@kevincdavis.net> wrote:
> On Sep 4, 10:14 am, ELINTPimp <smsi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 4, 11:00 am, Kevin Davis <kevin.da...@kevincdavis.net> wrote:
>
> > > Hello,
>
> > > I'm a new person when it comes to PHP and I have a quick question.
>
> > > I would like to create a form that will allow the user to add more
> > > information using the same form in case they have (similar to various
> > > employment sites).
>
> > > What would be the best way of using form arrays for that function?
>
> > > Thank you,
> > > Kevin
>
> > Hi Kevin,
>
> > I'm not sure exactly what you want to do...using your example of an
> > employment site...do you have a form that gathers a users employment
> > history, for example? And, if the employee has more than one previous
> > employer, to return to the same form so they can enter more
> > information? And, I assume, you do not want to submit the data to
> > persistent storage (ie database) until they are complete with the
> > form? If I'm off, let me know, just need clarification...
>
> Sorry about that I should added some claficiation.. The example would
> be if the user has more than one previous employer and they have add
> more until they are done. That is correct I don't want the user to
> enter the information to the database until they are done.
>
> Thanks..
OK, than you really have 3 options, the last 2 I'll mention has
several ways to implement each.
First, you can use database transactions. So, the solution would rely
more on the database rather than PHP. Basically, once the user starts
entering data, you open a persistent connection and start a
transaction. As data is added, modified, or deleted, you make those
changes to the database transaction. If errors popup, you do a
rollback. The data isn't actually saved in the database until you
commit the transaction. Good things are this makes it easier on the
PHP end, bad thing is the persistent connection, the overhead created
by talking to the database so much, and implementing a rollback on
data that wasn't saved incrementally could be bad news for your
customer (might have to enter in lots of data). I would be cautious
using this solution for your current situation, from what I see you're
doing.
Second, you use some form of data persistence between request,
typically using the SESSION superglobal or another form of filesystem
persistence. This one is the real PHP option. Here, you have to
(carefully) manage the data the user enters, often using some sort of
array mapping so you can update/delete/search for a particular record
within an array. So, if storing in $_SESSION, you could create a
single namespace for the type of data, and use it like an array stack
to hold the records so as to have a single location to manipulate it
and not pollute the namespace. Something like:
$employmentHistory = array();
array_push($employmentHistory, $record);
$_SESSION['employmentHistory'] = $employmentHistory;
Another option, which would probably be nicer to manipulate but would
generate additional overhead, would be to create an employmentHistory
object and serialize/deserialize them during the requests. This is
something I've done in the past.
Your third option, again, lives outside PHP. You could use javaScript
or another client-side scripting language to generate additional
records on page, as needed, before even submitting it back to the
server. While this potentially could clutter up the page if there are
many, it can often be done gracefully and well done. In this
situation, you would be looking at a DHTML solution, of which there
are many tutorials on the Internet to get you started, if you choose
this method. Generally, and increasingly nowadays, this solution is
being implemented more and more for situations like this. I've also
use this solution numerous times with great success.
So, that's a brief overview of how you can attack this problem. If
you need additional information on either of these suggestions, just
let me know.
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