Editing or adding a record

[AaronL]

Hello,

I'm designing an e-commerce page and had a few questions.

What is the best way to edit a record? For example, I want to put an admin page together where I can edit an item for sale, change the image of the item, and change any other information.

Here is what I have so far which basically only creates the gui.

<?php
echo "<form action='post'>";
echo "<table align='center' border='1'>";
echo "<tr><td align='center' colspan='3' bgcolor='#C0C0C0'><b>Edit Product</b></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><b>Product ID:</b> { product id }</td>
<td colspan='2'><b>Title:</b> <input type='text' size='50' value='{ title }' /></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td colspan='3'><b>Catagory:</b> { catagory }</td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td><b>List Price:</b> $<input type='text' size='5' name='list' /></td>
<td><b>Our Price:</b> $<input type='text' size='5' name='price' /> <input type='checkbox' name='taxable' checked>Taxable?</td>
<td><b>Shipping: $<input type='text' name='shipping' size='5' /></td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td colspan='3'><br><center><b>Item Picture:</b> <input type='text' size='50' name='picture' /></center><br>
<b>Description:</b><br><center><textarea rows='10' cols='50' name='description'>{ description }</textarea></center>
<br><p align='right'>Preview</p></td></tr>";
echo "</table>";
echo "</form>";
?>
 

That's just the basic gui, my main question is, how do I pull up a browse window to upload an image, and after I upload the image, how can I refresh the display on the edit window with the new image? Am I on the right track to creating this page?

Also, I plan on designing a username and password system. Do I mainly use cookies with that and pass the password along via POST amongst the pages and verify it with the user database everytime? I'd like this to be secure as well, and I know part of that is purchasing an SSL certificate etc...

I may be overthinking a lot of things and it's starting to discourage me.

[AaronL]

Oh, and I would like to be able to add file filters to my image upload box to only upload .jpg files

[Markus]

@chelf
I think we all get that feeling sometimes.

First of all, you might consider not outputting all that html via PHP. Which would you say is the neater and more efficient of the below?

1.

echo "<div>";
echo "<span>";
echo "hi";
echo "</span>";
echo "</div>";
 

2.

echo <<<EOF
<div>
  <span>
    hi
  </span>
</div>
 

Read: heredoc syntax.

To your second question. There is no _good_ way of knowing when a file has finished uploading. Your best option would be to have your file upload (html: <input type='file'>) on the same page, and also a submit button for it.

3rd question. You will want to look into sessions. Sessions persist until the browser is closed (or you specify otherwise) and that way you don't have to validate a person's password on each page load; just check that there is a session variable named, say, 'logged_in' set (you will set this when someone logs in).

[AaronL]

Ok, thank you for the advice, I modified my code as the followng:

<?php
echo <<<EOT
<form action='prodedit.php' method='post' enctype='multipart/formdata'>
<table align='center' border='1'>
<tr><td align='center' colspan='3' bgcolor='#C0C0C0'><b>Add Product</b></td></tr>
<tr><td><b>Item Number:</b> { NEW }<input type='hidden' value='0' name='itemno' /></td>
<td colspan='2'><b>Title:</b> <input type='text' size='50' value='{ title }' name='title' /></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan='3'><b>Catagory:</b> { catagory }<input type='hidden' value='100' name='catagory' /></td></tr>
<tr><td><b>List Price:</b> $<input type='text' size='5' name='list' /></td>
<td><b>Our Price:</b> $<input type='text' size='5' name='price' /> <input type='checkbox' name='taxable' checked>Taxable?</td>
<td><b>Shipping: $<input type='text' name='shipping' size='5' /></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan='3'><br><center><b>Item Picture:</b> <input type='file' size='50' name='picture' /></center><br>
<b>Description:</b><br><center><textarea rows='10' cols='50' name='description'>{ description }</textarea></center>
<br><p align='right'><input type='submit' value='Add Product' /></p></td></tr></table></form>";
EOT;
?>
 

I have a few more questions:

I've gotten to the point where I wrote the product edit program and it takes the post data from this form and adds a record to the database. My first question is, I have an input type=file in there for image, I want the product edit program to upload that specific image to a directory, and reference it in the database. I understand the database part, but what is the best way to upload the image and error trap it in case that image name already exists and add it to the database?

I also noticed that my decimals for my prices are being removed, how do I get the .00 back in the price if the price is say $4.00? The variable type in mysql that I am using is decimal

[Markus]

@chelf
You will want to use file_exists() to see whether the image already exists. The 'add it to the database' part, I don't understand.

Using DECIMAL requires a little more information. Reading this should help you out (make sure you have the M and D values set in your database).

[AaronL]

Great! Thank you so much for your help!

[Markus]

@chelf
No problem. If you have a more specific question, start a thread and we'll give you a hand again.

Mark.