[RESOLVED] Deleting Multiple Database Items

[Joseph Witchard]

If you had a blogging engine that you custom wrote, and you wanted to be able to delete multiple entries via a HTML form with check boxes rather than deleting one entry at a time, how would you do this with PHP and SQL?

[Mindzai]

I would build a where statement using PHP and plug that onto my query:

// assuming your ids are in array
$to_delete = array(1,5,93,7,32);
$in = implode(',', $to_delete);
$sql = "DELETE FROM mytable WHERE id IN ($in)"; 

[Joseph Witchard]

How would the code be able to tell which check boxes were checked? Sorry, but this is the first time I've worked with check boxes on a form.

[Mindzai]

You just name the checkboxes in such a way that they get passed as an array to php, eg:

<form>
<input type="checkbox" name="entries[1]" />
<input type="checkbox" name="entries[2]" />
<input type="checkbox" name="entries[3]" />
etc...
</form> 

Where entries will be your array and the numbers are entry ids. When this is submitted, you will be able to access the array via $_POST['entries]. Any checked checkboxes will be in the array, any unchecked ones wont.

[Joseph Witchard]

How would I do this while fetching the other table fields and displaying them in the form at the same time? I was going to display information about the posts on the delete page, to make it easier to know what you're deleting. However, looking at this, I don't know how to accomplish both at the same time without messing something up.

[Mindzai]

I'm not sure I follow. Could you not just query the database for the post information you wish to show on the delete page, and build your form using checkbox arrays?

ie:

// get the post data here
echo '<form method="post" action="foo.php">';
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo 'Delete? <input type="checkbox" name="entries[' . $row['id'] . ']" />'
    echo '<div>' . $row['title'] . '</div>';
    echo '<div>' . $row['content'] . '</div>';
}
echo '</form>'; 

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