Problems passing a hidden variable

[jej1216]

I'm pretty new to PHP and MySQL. I have managed to create a form that inserts data to MySQL and to create a form to search the DB. Now here is my problem. I am unsuccessful coding a hidden variable in an update page. Here is what I have:

search_ir.php (this page searches the DB and lists incident_id's found. User then enters the incident_id of the row to update):

....
<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="edit_ir.php">
<h3>Enter the Incident ID for the Report You Need to Edit:</h3>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td><INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME="incident_id" VALUE="" SIZE=6 MAXLENGTH=6></td>
<td><INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Edit"></td>
<td><INPUT TYPE=RESET VALUE="Reset"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</FORM>
....
 

edit_ir.php (this page receives the incident_id entered above and displays the data - some of the data has been completed, but other fields are inputted on this page to then update the row in the db on submit):

...
<?php
$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "no2nt"); mysql_select_db("etest",$db);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM jos_incidents_combined WHERE incident_id = '$_REQUEST[incident_id]'",$db);
    while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result))
    {
    echo $myrow["incident_id"];
...
<FORM NAME = "rm_edit_ir" METHOD="POST" ACTION="ir_updated.php">
...
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="incident_id" VALUE="<?php echo $_REQUEST[incident_id]; ?>">
<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Submit Form" >
 
<INPUT TYPE=RESET VALUE="Reset Form">
</FORM>
...
 

ir_updated.php (updates the db with the data from above code):

...
$sql = "UPDATE jos_incidents_combined SET
        assess_ortho        = '$_REQUEST[assess_ortho]',
        rescore_morse       = '$_REQUEST[rescore_morse]'
        WHERE incident_id = '$_REQUEST[incident_id]'";
...
 
 

In ir_updated.php, I get the error:
"Notice: Use of undefined constant incident_id - assumed \'incident_id\' in /usr/local/php_classes/edit_ir.php on line 238"

line 238 in edit_ir.php is this:

<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="incident_id" VALUE="<?php echo $_REQUEST[incident_id]; ?>">
 

Should I be passing something else instead of ="<?php echo $_REQUEST[incident_id]; ?>, or am I not referring to the variable properly?

TIA,

jej1216

[pbmods]

Should I be passing something else instead of ="<?php echo $_REQUEST[incident_id]; ?>, or am I not referring to the variable properly?

You're getting this notice because you didn't put 'incident_id' in quotes. When you use an unquoted string literal, PHP first checks to see if there is a constant by that name. Now granted, it's unlikely that the next version of PHP is going to have an incident_id constant, but just to be on the safe side (and to get rid of that notice, you should do this instead [note the quotes around incident_id]):

<?php echo $_REQUEST['incident_id']; ?>
 

[jej1216]

You're getting this notice because you didn't put 'incident_id' in quotes. When you use an unquoted string literal, PHP first checks to see if there is a constant by that name. Now granted, it's unlikely that the next version of PHP is going to have an incident_id constant, but just to be on the safe side (and to get rid of that notice, you should do this instead [note the quotes around incident_id]):

<?php echo $_REQUEST['incident_id']; ?>
 

Thanks! I figured it was some small but huge code error on my part!
Just so I understand your explanation, though --- by not using the single quotes I was confusing PHP? It seems from the notice I got that PHP assumed the correct value. But, the update failed until I followed your code correction. Also, once I was in ir_updated.php, the update sql had to not use the single quotes - I guess at that point it was then a constant????

[pbmods]

Thanks! I figured it was some small but huge code error on my part!
Just so I understand your explanation, though --- by not using the single quotes I was confusing PHP? It seems from the notice I got that PHP assumed the correct value. But, the update failed until I followed your code correction. Also, once I was in ir_updated.php, the update sql had to not use the single quotes - I guess at that point it was then a constant????

When you used $_POST[incident_id], PHP first looked for a constant named 'incident_id'. When it didn't find that, it used the literal 'incident_id' instead.

Suppose you did this instead:

define('incident_id', 5);
 
$array = array(
    incident_id => 10,
    'incident_id' => 99
);
 
print($array[incident_id] . ' / ' . $array['incident_id']);
 

The above code would output "10 / 99".

Things get a little confusing when you use array keys in strings, but that's outside the scope of this post. For more information, take a look at the PHP manual.

[jej1216]

Thanks for the help - I really appreciate it. Hopefully, in the near future, my posts will be for more complex issues rather than for newbee mistakes.