PHP —

Adding Links to Results

As discussed in the earlier section Section 5.1.3, scripts can also include embedded URLs with parameters that can run queries. This is a powerful tool, and one that is used in most web database applications. In this section, we show the power of this technique with an example from the winestore. In the next section, we show how embedded URLs can be used in a longer case study.

In Chapter 4, we authored the panel to display the latest wines that have been added to the winestore. We noted that the panel used in the winestore has Add to Cart functionality, in which a user can click on a link, and a bottle or case of wine is added to her shopping cart. This functionality is implemented using an embedded URL that is dynamically created from data in the database. Example 5-7 displays the code used to add the "Add to Cart" link that's embedded in the panel. The code creates a URL with parameters that specify the quantity and the product to add to the shopping cart.

Example 5-7. The code used to add the "Add to Cart" link
echo "<tr align=\"right\"><td>" .
     "<a href=\"example.5-8.php?qty=1&amp;wineId=" .
     $row["wine_id"] .
     "\">Add a bottle to the shopping cart</a>" .
     "</td></tr>";

The code fragment in Example 5-7 creates a link such as:

http://localhost/example.5-8.php?qty=1&wineId=801

The URL parameter wineId is formed with the database wine_id attribute value that is associated with the current wine being displayed in the panel. When the user clicks the link, example.5-8.php is requested and the parameters are supplied to the script. The user can type the URL directly her their web browser with the same effect, or you can author a <form> for the same purpose. We discuss the script example.5-8.php in the next section.

Be careful what information is embedded in links. For example, never embed the price of an item you later rely on to create an invoice for the user. Remember that the user can manually enter URLs in their browser and can modify any of the parameters. If a price is embedded, a user can create the URL manually and change the price of the item!