Posted by Johnny on 08/27/06 20:30

"Anne Bos" <anne.bos@hccnet.nl> wrote in message
news:d1u3f2hh1ep2och4df1513rgfnl0uu1bfb@4ax.com...
> I have a database where authors are listed together with articles they
> wrote in a little journal. I want to present people what author has
> produced what articles. In order to do that I made a form, adressing a
> file called authors.php. If someone gives in a name of an author,
> his/her name as well as his/her articles are listed as expected. So
> far no problems.
> However, if no name is given or if just return is hit, the querry
> gives all authors. In that case I want no author being given back,
> instead I prefer to give a sentence: "Please give the name of a
> possible author".
>
> The relevant items are (within php of course):
> $search = $_POST[author];
> and
> $sql="SELECT (the relevant field names) FROM journal WHERE author LIKE
> '%$search%' ORDER BY idart";
> (idart gives a chronological numbering of all articles)
>
> What should I do? Any hint is appreciated.
>
> Anne Bos

an approach:

$search = $_POST['author'];
if (!empty($_POST['author'])) {
$sql="SELECT (the relevant field names) FROM journal WHERE author LIKE
'%$search%' ORDER BY idart";
// and your mysql and output stuff here
}
else {
echo "<p>Please give the name of a possible author</p>";
}

BTW you might want to save yourself some grief down the road by reading up
about sql injection and filtering the post accordingly.
also you should use single quotes around col tags $_POST['author'] so php
doesn't try to interpret them as constants initially.

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