Inserting multiple values from multiple forms at once in PHP and MySQL

Question

I am creating a system for my dissertation for a school to use. There's one aspect I can't get working though. I want to be able to set attendance for multiple people all at once. There's an image here that will show you what the form looks like:

multiple attendance form

All values are set to present, so only a couple can be chaged to absent if need be. Once the button is pressed at the bottom of the form, I would like it to navigate to a confirmation page. I have used a MySQl query to get a list of staff members whose attendance has not already been set and used an include tag to place this in an HTML form. The code I have to produce the list is as follows:

<?php // Get a list of all items and display them in ID order $dynamicList = ""; $sql = mysql_query("SELECT StaffID, StaffName FROM StaffDetails WHERE StaffID NOT IN (SELECT StaffID FROM StaffAttendance WHERE AttendanceDate = curdate()) ORDER BY StaffID ASC"); // Show list $productCount = mysql_num_rows($sql); $setTodaysAttendanceList = ""; if ($productCount > 0) { while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) { $StaffID = $row["StaffID"]; $StaffName = $row["StaffName"]; $setTodaysAttendanceList .= '<tr style="font-size:15px;"> <td><a href="../staff_member_details.php?id=' . $StaffID . '">' . $StaffID . '</a></td> <td><a href="../staff_member_details.php?id=' . $StaffID . '">' . $StaffName . '</a></td> <td><label> <select name="attendance_status" id="attendance_status"> <option value="Present">Present</option> <option value="Absent">Absent</option> </select> </label></td> <td><label> <textarea cols="21" rows="5" name="notes" id="notes" placeholder="Enter notes here..."></textarea> </label></td> </tr>'; } } else { $setTodaysAttendanceList = "There are no records listed at this time"; } mysql_close(); ?>

Then within the HTML I have this:

<form action="set_multiple_staff_attendance_confirm.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="StaffAttendanceForm" id="StaffAttendanceForm" method="post"> <?php echo $setTodaysAttendanceList; ?> <tr style="font-size:15px;"> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td><label> <input type="submit" name="addNewRow" id="addNewRow" value="Add Staff Attendance Records" /> </label></form></td> </tr>

When it redirects to the next page, I have an insert query that looks like this:

<?php // Add row to database if (isset($_POST['staff_id'])) { $staff_id = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['staff_id']); $attendance_status = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['attendance_status']); $notes = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['notes']); $sql .= mysql_query("INSERT INTO StaffAttendance (StaffID, AttendanceDate, AttendanceStatus, Notes) VALUES ('$staff_id', now(), '$attendance_status', '$notes')") or die (mysql_error()); $editid = mysql_insert_id(); } ?>

I know this is a long and convoluted way of asking, but I'm just showing that I've had a go and am completely stuck!

Why not put the form tag outside the table? Then name the form inputs such that they are prefixed by their row index -- pretty easy to untangle from the back-end with a simple for loop. — David-SkyMesh
– David-SkyMesh, Commented Apr 9, 2012 at 12:27
When you say "row-index" @David-SkyMesh, which variable to you mean? This is my current form tag: <form action="set_multiple_staff_attendance_confirm.php" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="StaffAttendanceForm" id="StaffAttendanceForm" method="post"> Would you suggest echoing out the PHP variable for the Staff ID? — Zulu Irminger
– Zulu Irminger, Commented Apr 9, 2012 at 12:50

Stefan · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-09 12:53:49Z

It looks to me like you are checking for $_POST["staffid"], but your select menus have name="attendance_status" set.

You should rather set the names of your select menus like this:

name="attendance_status[]"

Then in your php script you read an array - not a single value - when you do $_POST["attendance_staff"].

EDIT: This will only work if you also have an array available with all the corresponding staffids. You can get this by using a hidden input for every row whose name is staffid[] and whose value is the staffid.

However, a more reliable way would probably be to use the staffid inside the name of every saveable form element, as David-SkyMesh pointed out in a comment to your post.

EDIT: For example, you could use this code to name your form elements (untested):

<select name="$staffID_attendance_status" id="$staffID_attendance_status"> <option value="Present">Present</option> <option value="Absent">Absent</option> </select> <textarea cols="21" rows="5" name="$staffID_notes" id="$staffID_notes" placeholder="Enter notes here..."></textarea> <input type='hidden' name='staffID[]' value='$staffID'>

Note that this will also give all your form elements unique ids which is necessary if you want your HTML to validate.

Then in your script you could do this:

foreach ($_POST["staffID"] as $staffID) { $staff_id = mysql_real_escape_string($staffID); $attendance_status = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST[$staff_id . "_attendance_status"]); $notes = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST[$staff_id . "_notes"]); $sql .= mysql_query("INSERT INTO StaffAttendance (StaffID, AttendanceDate, AttendanceStatus, Notes) VALUES ('$staff_id', now(), '$attendance_status', '$notes')") or die (mysql_error()); $editid = mysql_insert_id(); }

Thank you for your comments. @Ben you're right, I should have been more specific. My problem was was that the data wasn't appearing at the back end database. David-SkyMesh and Stefan that's great thanks, I'll have a look now and let you know if it works! Many thanks, Zulu
@ZuluIrminger: OK - I have added some edits with more suggestions on how to do this.
You guys are amazingly helpful, I'm so grateful! I'll have a go at this in a minute. The way I tried it just now inserted 100,000 blank rows into my database... I'm currently waiting for php myadmin to load them all so I can delete them...!
This has worked an absolute dream, and you've helped take a great weight off my shoulders! Thank you so so so much @Stefan and others!

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