Changing form's text field to checkbox

[peck2000]

Related to my earleir post ... this is the same project to re-purpose the Classifieds application in BEGINNING ASP 3.0 (Wrox) to a comicbook database ...

This is a brainteaser that should have been easy to resolve but just doesn't seem to work for me ... The original application includes a form page for editing the details of an "item". In my case the item is a comicbook. The page functions just fine as long as I stick with text fields, but I run into problems when I try to change a couple of the text fields into checkboxes.

So, here's the code of the Item.asp page with text fields:

<%
  Dim blnNew
     ' detect whether the user is adding a new item or editing an existing one
  Select Case Request.QueryString("Action")
    Case "AddNew"
      blnNew = True
    Case "Edit"
      blnNew = False
  End Select
 
%>
 
    <div id="fullwidth">
    <%
      If blnNew Then 
        Response.Write _ 
          "<center><h1>Add an issue to the database</h1></center>" & _
          "<center><p>Please add the following information for the issue you've just acquired</p> "
      Else 
        Response.Write _ 
          "<center><h1>Edit data for issue you already have</h1></center>" & _
          "<center><p>Please edit the information for this item</p> "
        Dim rsItem 
        Set rsItem = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
        strSQL = "SELECT Title.titleName, Item.idItem, Item.issue, Item.[month], Item.[year], " & _
      " Item.cond, Item.gcdb, Item.image, Item.cents, Item.have, Item.want, Item.note " & _ 
      " FROM Title INNER JOIN Item ON Title.idTitle = Item.idTitle " & _
      " ORDER BY titleName,month;"
 
        rsItem.Open strSQL, objConn, adOpenForwardOnly, adLockOptimistic, adCmdText 
      End If
    %>
 
    <form action="addItem.asp" method="post">
<% 
  If blnNew Then %>
    <input type="Hidden" name="idItem" value=""> <%
  Else %>
    <input type="Hidden" name="idItem" value="<%= Request("Item") %>"> <%
  End If
%>
<table border='0'>
  <tr>
    <td width=20% rowspan=8> </td>
    <td align="right">Title:</td>
    <td colspan="3"><input type="Text" name="titleName" 
          value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("titleName") End If%>"
          size="40" maxlength="75"></TD>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Issue:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="issue" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("issue") End If%>"
         size="6"></td>
    <td align="right">Condition:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="cond" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("cond") End If%>"
         size="6"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Month:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="month" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("month") End If%>"
         size="6"></td>
    <td align="right">Year:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="year" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("year") End If %>" 
         size="6"></td>
  </tr>
 
  <tr>
    <td align="right">GCDB Page:</td>
    <td colspan="3"><input type="Text" name="gcdb" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("gcdb") End If%>"
         size="40"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Image:</td>
    <td colspan="3"><input type="Text" name="image" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("image") End If%>"
         size="40"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Cents:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="cents" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("cents") End If %>" 
         size="6"></td>
 
    <td> </td>
    <td> </td>
 
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Have:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="have" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("have") End If %>" 
         size="6"></td>
 
    <td align="right">Want:</td>
    <td><input type="Text" name="want" 
         value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("want") End If %>" 
         size="6"></td>
  </tr>
 
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Notes:</td>
    <td colspan="3"><input name="note" type="text" 
    value="<% If Not blnNew Then Response.Write rsItem("note") End If %>" 
    size="40"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> </td>
    <td align=center colspan=4><BR><%
      If Not blnNew Then %>
        <input type="Submit" name="Delete" value="Delete Item"><%
      End If %>
 
      <input type="Submit" 
         value="<% If blnNew Then %>Add New Item<% Else %>Update Item<% End If %>">
 
      <input type="Reset"></TD>
  </TR>
</table>
</form>

The object here is to create a dual-purpose page that can be used to add new items to the database and to edit existing items.

My problem arises when I try to change the "cents", "have" and "want" fields to checkboxes. This bit of code almost works:

106   <td align="right">Cents:</td>
107    <td><% If rsItem("cents") then strChecked = " checked" End If %>
108    <input type="checkbox" name="cents" value="<%=rsItem("cents")%>"<%=strChecked%>>
    </td>
    <td> </td>
    <td> </td>
 
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="right">Have:</td>
    <td><% If rsItem("have") then strChecked = " checked" End If %>
    <input type="checkbox" name="have" value="<%=rsItem("have")%>"<%=strChecked%>>
    </td>
    <td align="right">Want:</td>
    <td><% If rsItem("want") then strChecked = " checked" End If %>
    <input type="checkbox" name="want" value="<%=rsItem("want")%>"<%=strChecked%>>
    </td>

(The variable "strChecked" is DIMmed further up the page!)

I say "almost" because it works fine (returns a checked checkbox when the related field in the database is checked) when I'm looking at an existing database entry, but it fails when I try to use it to add an entirely new item, with this error message:

Microsoft VBScript runtime  error '800a000d'
 
Type mismatch
 
/publishing/comics/collecting/admin/item2.asp, line 107

If anyone knows how to solve this problem, I'd be ever so grateful ...

Best,

peck2000

[jhardman]

I'm not sure, I'm having a little difficulty picturing the problem, but it seems that the problem lies between how different programs interpret boolean variables. for example, If I remember right, SQL SERVER recognizes 0 and 1, but Access recognizes "True" and "False", whereas HTML checkboxes are interpretted as "on" or "". Could these distinctions be causing the problem?

By the way, I noticed that you don't reset the variable strChecked after it is used. Each time you say something like

if [some condition] then strChecked = " checked" end if

and then use it again. If the first condition is satisfied then each subsequent time you will get " checked" because you never tell it to reset (strChecked = "") after you use it.

Jared