Server-side scripting with PHP4

Michael Schacht Hansen (msh@hi.au.dk)

Lars Riisgaard Ribe (lars.ribe@iekf.au.dk)
Section for Health Informatics
Faculty of Health Sciences
University of Aarhus
Denmark

June 19, 2001

Contents
1 Preface 3
1.1 What is PHP? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 What is this document? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Introduction 3
2.1 What is server-side scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1.1 Standard static web pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1.2 Web pages generated with server side scripting . . . . . . 4
2.2 When to use server-side scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 What you need to get started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3 Installation 6
3.1 Linux server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1 Selecting a Linux distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.2 Installing Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.3 Installing packages after Linux installation . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.4 Testing the web server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.5 Test the PHP installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1.6 Test the MySQL installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 Windows 2000 server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.1 Installing MySQL in Windows 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.2 Installing PHP in Windows 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.3 Using Microsoft Access databases with PHP . . . . . . . . 10

4 The first PHP application 10

4.1 Application description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2 The Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3 The PHP script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4 Testing the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5 Programming with PHP 13

5.1 Basic syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1.1 Escaping HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1.2 Instruction separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1.3 Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2 Variables and Data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2.1 Basic variable syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2.2 Data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.2.3 Variables passed from HTML forms . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.3 Control structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.5 Getting more information on the PHP language . . . . . . . . . . 20

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6 Interfacing databases 20
6.1 Structured Query Language SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.1 SELECT command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.2 INSERT command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.1.3 UPDATE command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.2 Scenario: MySQL database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.2.1 Creating a database and a database user . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2.2 Extracting information from the database with PHP . . . 25
6.2.3 Creating new records with PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.2.4 Updating records with PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6.2.5 Finishing the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.3 Scenario: Access database on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server . . 30
6.3.1 Extracting information from the Microsoft Access database
with PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.3.2 Creating new records with PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.3.3 Updating records with PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.3.4 Finishing the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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1 Preface
1.1 What is PHP?
PHP (originally Personal Home Page) is a programming language used to
enhance web pages. It is a server-side scripting language meaning, that it is exe-
cuted on the server as apposed to client-side scripting languages like Javascript.
PHP is also an embedded scripting language. This means that you can de-
sign your web pages as usual and embed the programming language where it is
needed. PHP is very often used to extract dynamic web content from a database.

1.2 What is this document?

This document is a brief introduction to server-side scripting with the PHP
scripting language. Focus is on the general principles of server-side scripting
and the PHP language has been chosen as an example. For a more complete
manual on PHP, consult the PHP reference manual [1].

1.3 Prerequisites
It is assumed that the reader has some prior experience with web design and
some basic understanding of HTML. Experience with WYSIWYG1 HTML ed-
itors is generally not enough, since you have to wite a lot of HTML by hand
when doing server-side scripting. For an introduction to HTML refer to A short
introduction to HTML and CSS [2].

2 Introduction
In this section we will focus on the basic principles of server-side scripting. In
what ways does server-side scripting differ from standard static web pages?

2.1 What is server-side scripting

2.1.1 Standard static web pages
Many of the pages that we view on the web are static. This means that they dont
change, once the author has finished writing/designing them. When a user types
in the address of a specific page in a web browser, the communication follows a
model similar to figure 1. A request is sent to the server. The request contains
the name of the requested document and several header fields. The header fields
contain information about the browser requesting the document. The server
locates the document on the disk and returns it to the users browser. The
browser then displays the document according to the settings and specifications
of the browser. The browser might also respond to some of the header fields. It
might store a cookie on the users machine or it might be redirected to another
web page. Normally the web author has no control over these header fields when
designing web pages, but they can be manipulated by server-side scripting as
we shall see.
1 What You See Is What You Get

3
 Figure 1: Communication model for static web pages.

2.1.2 Web pages generated with server side scripting

When a web server serves pages generated with server side scripting, the com-
munication model becomes a bit more complicated. Figure 2 illustrates this
communication. The pages referred to in the address field of the users browser is
no longer an HTML file (or another static resource like an image). It is a script2
and the web server calls up an interpreter to execute the script. As indicated in

Figure 2: Communication model for dynamic web pages generated with server-
side scripting.
2 A URL can also refer to a compiled program. In that case you would not call it server-side

scripting (since it is not a script), but the communication model would still be the same.

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figure 2 the scripting engine is often in contact with several resources. This con-
nection to databases or external hardware is what makes server-side scripting
so attractive. The scripting engine can make decisions based on databases or
other resources and generate web pages that change dynamically. The scripting
engine can also make decisions based on user input, making it possible to create
web sites that are more interactive.

2.2 When to use server-side scripting

Once you get familiar with a sever-side scripting language you notice many
situations where you might benefit from using scripting. You might even find
that you use it on every single web page you create. Scripting does however give
the server an extra workload and you should consider if it is really necessary
in all the situations where you use it. The obvious situations to use server-side
scripting fall into three categories (they are somewhat overlapping, but still
different situations):
Interfacing databases. Whenever you have a database and you want to
create a web-interface for it, you need scripting. It might be a database of
customers, a searchable image database etc.
Controlling or monitoring external hardware. Process control and moni-
toring through web-interfaces is becoming very popular. You might control
the heating system of your house or in the future monitor how critically
ill patients are doing.
Content management systems. If you are creating a web site and someone
else is supplying the contents for that web site. Especially if that someone
doesnt know how to create web pages. You might setup a system for
uploading and storing the contents and generate the web pages on the fly
from a database.

2.3 What you need to get started

Hopefully you have established a basic idea of what server-side scripting is,
and when you should use it. Next you need some basic requisites to be able to
write and execute scripts. Basically you need (for installation details refer to
section 3):
1. First of all you need a computer with a web server installed. PHP will run
on Windows NT/2000, most Unix type operating systems (Linux, Solaris,
Irix etc.) and MacOS X.
2. Then you need to have PHP (preferably version 4) installed. PHP is avail-
able for free.
3. If you want to interface a database you should install a database engine.
You may use a Microsoft Access Database on the Windows platform for,
but we recommend getting a database like Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL
(this one is available for free), or Oracle if you are doing larger projects.

5
 4. You also need some sort of text editor. Almost any text editor will do, we
recommend a text editor like Emacs [3] or Ultra Edit [4]. It is important
to get comfortable with your text editor. You will be spending a lot of
time with it. You could also use whatever HTML editor you are using
at the moment, but some of them get confused (and report errors) when
you start putting PHP (or any other scripting language) in your HTML
documents.

3 Installation
Your installation scenario depends on your operating system. Here we will go
through some of the considerations for two different scenarios:
1. A Linux operating system running Apache web server, MySQL and PHP.
2. A Windows 2000 operating system running Internet Information Server
(IIS), MySQL/Access database and PHP.

3.1 Linux server

The Linux solution can be installed without paying any license fees (it is com-
pletely free), and interestingly enough is is probably the easiest solution to
install since all the components you need are included with all major Linux
distributions. If you start rebuilding (compiling) new versions of the necessary
components things get a little more complicated, but you should not need to do
that unless you have very specific needs.

3.1.1 Selecting a Linux distribution

The first thing you need to do is select a Linux distribution. A distribution
is a collection of software containing the core operating system (the kernel)
and several programs that run under the operating system (for instance a web
server). There are many different distributions of Linux. For the present purpose
you can choose any of the following:
RedHat. Current version is 7.1
This is probably the most popular distribution. Easy to install and every-
thing you need is there.
www.redhat.com
Mandrake. Current version is 8.0
A lot like RedHat, but maybe a bit more user-friendly and easier to install.
www.linux-mandrake.com
SuSE. Current version is 7.2
Use this is if want a large distribution with everything in it. You should
order their CD-set.
www.suse.com
Debian. Current version is 2.2r3
Not as user friendly as the others. More a developers/nerd platform.
www.debian.org

6
If you have no idea which to choose, we recommend you download RedHat or
Mandrake from their web sites and burn installation CD-ROMs. The installation
CD-ROMs are usually bootable, meaning you can insert them in the CD-ROM
drive and reboot the computer to start installation.

3.1.2 Installing Linux

This document is not an installation guide to Linux, and you should consult
the document on the distribution that you have downloaded. In this section we
will make sure that you remember to install the components needed for running
PHP and a web server.
The installation programs usually have an automatic mode, which does all
the harddrive partitioning etc. for you. Be careful with those wizards if you have
data on your hard drive, that you dont want to loose. In general you should
not experiment on computers that are mission critical.
Once the installation program gets started you have to choose which packages
to install. Linux distributions consist of many different software packages3 You
need to install the following packages to be able to use PHP and databases:
1. Apache web server. This is the standard web server on Unix type comput-
ers.
2. mod php. This is a plug-in module to allow Apache to execute PHP scripts.
3. MySQL. The database server.
4. MySQL client. Console based client program for manipulating your database.
The Linux distribution might need to include other packages, to solve dependen-
cies, but this is usually solved automatically. There might also be a possibility of
doing a server (or web server) type installation. This type of installation usually
includes the required components and configures them for you.

3.1.3 Installing packages after Linux installation

If you already have a Linux box running you will need to have the packages
mentioned above. These packages can usually be found on the installation CD-
ROM or on the internet. I recommend http://rpmfind.net (Debian does not
use rpm packages) if you are looking for packages for you distribution. RPM
packages are easy to install on Linux distribution. You can use commands like:
rpm -ivh packagename.rpm
The RPM installation program checks if you have the necessary packages re-
quired by the package you are installing and tells you if any are missing.

3.1.4 Testing the web server

The web server has a root directory somewhere, where it keeps the HTML
files. The location of this root directory varies from distribution to distribution.
Usually the individual users on the server also have rights for creating web pages
in their own directory. These web pages are usually located in a folder called:
3 Many distributions use the Redhat Package Manager (RPM) packages.

7
/home/your_user_name/public_html
If this directory does not exist in your home directory you should create it with
the command:
mkdir /home/your_user_name/public_html
Try placing an HTML file in that directory and type the the following address
in your browser:
http://server_name/~your_username/name_of_file.html
You should see the HTML document displayed in the browser.

3.1.5 Test the PHP installation

Create a document called test.php containing the following:
<html>

<body>

<?phpinfo() ?>

</body>

</html>
Type the address of the new document in your browser and you should see a
PHP info page.

3.1.6 Test the MySQL installation

You can check if MySQL is running by trying to log into it. This is done with
the following command:
mysql -u root -p
The server will prompt you for a password. If you are running a new installation,
the password is blank and you can press enter. If MySQL is running you should
see something like:
mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2 to server version: 3.23.36

Type help; or \h for help. Type \c to clear the buffer

mysql>
You could try issuing a command like:
mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
This should print a list of the available databases.

8
3.2 Windows 2000 server
This guide is based on a Windows 2000 Server running Internet Information Ser-
vices (IIS), which is the default web server. If you are using another web server
than IIS in a Windows 2000 Server, the installation might work automatically,
but after the installation has finished you can otherwise refer to install.txt
and readme.txt in C:\php for information about integrating PHP with your
server.
If you would like to use MySQL as your database server, MySQL should be
installed first. For installation of MySQL please read section 3.2.1. If you are
not interested in using MySQL, you can go straight to the installation of PHP
in section 3.2.2.

3.2.1 Installing MySQL in Windows 2000

First of all you have to download MySQL from www.mysql.com. The latest stable
version is currently 3.23. During the installation you should use c:\mysql as the
directory in which MySQL should be installed, otherwise it doesnt work. Once
the installation has finished the program is on the computer, but the MySQL
server is not up and running yet. First of all, MySQL has to be registered as
a service, and second the MySQL server has to be started. These steps are
accomplished by opening an MS-DOS-box and type:
C:\mysql\bin\mysqld-nt --install <ENTER>
NET START mysql <ENTER>
Now the MySQL server is up and running. For information about testing MySQL,
please refer to section 3.1.6.

3.2.2 Installing PHP in Windows 2000

PHP can be installed using an installation program with standard features, it
can be be manually put together and it can be build from the ground. It is
absolutely recommended to use the version with the installation program, since
it does all the configuring for you. If, on the other hand, you run another web
server than IIS and the installation program doesnt work for you, you might
put it together manually. Please refer to the documentation at www.php.net for
further details (the rest of this section is based on the installation program).
First of all, you have to download PHP from www.php.net. The current sta-
ble version is 4.0.5, and you should select the version with packaged as Windows
installer (the small one). Before running the installation program, make sure
that you are administrator and you have MSCOMCTL.OCX in C:\winnt\system32.
This file is needed for the automated installation. If the file isnt there, you will
have to get it from somewhere else; the file comes with MSOffice, MS Visual Stu-
dio and other Microsoft programs. You can simply copy the file from a computer
that has it to c:\winnt\system32 and run the following command:
regsvr32 mscomctl.ocx
You are now ready to run the installation program4 . When the program asks for
4 If you havent got access to MSCOMCTL.OCX, it might be possible to install without
it. Simply install, click OK that you are missing MSCOMCTL.OCX and then read in the IIS
4+ section in install.txt in the PHP directory for more details

9
the SMTP server, you can fill it in if you know it or just leave as it is. Also leave
the selection of Microsoft IIS 4 or higher. When asked for the IIS Scriptmap
Node Selection mark all topics, if you want to run PHP on all web servers.
After the installation it is recommended, that the I_USR is granted read and
execute rights to php.exe and php4ts.dll, and list folder content, read
and write rights to the sub folders of c:\php.
Testing the PHP server is done as in section 3.1.5.

3.2.3 Using Microsoft Access databases with PHP

Access to a Microsoft Access database is through a common database-interface
called ODBC. It is not necessary to install any general programs to use a Mi-
crosoft Access database in PHP, but every Microsoft Access database that will
be accessed through PHP need to be registered as an ODBC source. To select
the right database when making database calls, every ODBC source must have
a name: the DSN.
The setup of the database type, the DSN and the actual filename is done in
Data Sources (ODBC). This program is found in:
Start>Programs>Administrative tools.
In systemDSN you can add an entry for your database. Here you select the type
(select Access database in english), the DSN(the name you use in PHP to access
it), and the file name. It is possible both to create a new database or use an
existing one.If you create a new database it will be empty so you will need to
create tables and columns in the database. This can be done either by using
Microsoft Access or by using SQL commands through PHP. Remember to give
the I_USR read and write access to the database file.
After this is complete, you can access your database through an ODBC call
to the name you specified as the DSN.

4 The first PHP application

Before we start getting into the gory details of the PHP programming language
we will take a look at a very simple example application. Use this application
to get a basic idea of PHP and to test if your server is setup correctly.

4.1 Application description

This first test application consists of a form (an HTML document) for data
input and a PHP script for interpreting the data input and displaying a result
in the browser window. The application asks for an email address and does some
processing on the text entered in the field. It parses the text and locates the
mailbox (mailbox alias) and the server name5 . It is assumed that the user enters
an email address, but there is no data validation. This is not a useful approach
for a real life application, but it will do for this test.
5 They are separated by the @ in the email address

10
4.2 The Form
The form is very straight forward. Open your text editor and type in the fol-
lowing.
<html>
<head>
<title>Simple Test Application</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Simple Test Application</h1>
<form action="do_form.php" method="post">

Type your email address:<br>

<input type="text" name="email">
<p>
<input type="submit">

</form>
</body>

</html>
Save the file with the extension *.html or *.htm. The form should look like
figure 3.

Figure 3: A simple form for entering an email address.

11
4.3 The PHP script
The next thing we need is a script for interpreting the information entered in the
form. Enter the following in your text editor and save the file as do_form.php.
The action property of the form tag in the HTML file above states that the
information from the form should be sent to a file called do_form.php.
<html>
<head>
<title>Simple Test Response</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Response from server</h1>

<?php
echo "Your email address is: <b>$email</b> <br> \n";
list ($mailbox, $server) = split ("@",$email,2);
echo "Your email must be located at the server <b>$server</b>.<br> \n";
echo "And your mailbox is called: <b>$mailbox</b> <br> \n";
?>
</body>

</html>

4.4 Testing the application

Your first PHP application should now be ready to run. Place the two files (the
form and the PHP script) in a folder on the web server, and open a browser.
Type the address of the form in the address field, fill in the form and hit submit.
The output should look like figure 4.

Figure 4: Output from the first, simple PHP application.

This first example application illustrates one of the ways PHP can be used to
make you web pages interactive. You should not worry if you dont understand

12
every single line of code in the example. The important points to note in the
example are:
Forms can be used to send information to scripts. The action property
of the form tag indicates where the information should be sent.
PHP scripts are text files that look much like HTML, but a special tag
<?php ?> escapes the HTML mode and allows the developer to write code
in the PHP scripting language.
The PHP scripting language has commands for processing input from
forms and writing output to the users browser.

5 Programming with PHP

This section contains some of the boring details about the PHP scripting lan-
guage. You can read this section now or use it as a reference later. If you are
new to programming we recommend you read it now.

5.1 Basic syntax

5.1.1 Escaping HTML
PHP is an embedded scripting language. This mean that your PHP scripts are
really just HTML documents with PHP added where it is needed. You need to
escape the HTML mode to write PHP. There are several ways of doing this.
The following example illustrates the standard way of escaping HTML:
<html>

<head>
<title>How to escape HTML mode</title>
</head>

</body>
<h1>How to escape HTML mode</h1>

<?php
echo "We are now in PHP mode<br>\n";
?>

This is standard HTML mode.<br>

</body>

</html>
There are several other ways of escaping HTML (listed below) but I recommend
the approach illustrated above.

13
<?php echo("Use this approach\n"); ?>

<? echo ("Simple version\n"); ?>

<script language="php">
echo ("For editors like FrontPage");
</script>

<% echo ("ASP-style tags"); %>

<%= $variable; %>

5.1.2 Instruction separation

Like any other programming language PHP consists of separate instructions.
These instructions need to be separated with semicolons (;). Several instructions
can be written on one line as long as they are separated with semicolons. On
the other hand you are allowed to spread one instruction over several lines. This
is illustrated below:
<?php
echo "This"; echo "is"; echo "several"; echo "instructions";

echo "This, on
the other
hand, is only
one instruction";
?>

5.1.3 Comments
Comments can (and should be) placed in the PHP code using one of the following
notations.

//C++ Style one-line comment

# Shell style one-line comment

/* Multi
Line
Comment */

We recommend that you adapt one of the styles and stick with it to avoid any
confusion.

5.2 Variables and Data types

5.2.1 Basic variable syntax
Variables are indicated by a dollar sign ($) followed by the variable name. Vari-
able names may contain letters or numbers and the underscore character (_).

14
Variable names must begin with a letter or the underscore character. Variable
names are case-sensitive. The following lines illustrate valid variable names:
$firstname = "Michael";
$firstName = "John";
$first_name = "Peter";
$age = 23;
A variable is defined when a value is assigned to it. Variables are valid within the
context in which they are defined (variable scope). This usually means within
the entire PHP script. The variables are however not automatically valid within
functions (refer to section 5.4). Variables within functions are only defined in
the functions (local variables) and global variables needed in the functions must
be explicitly declared with the global keyword.

5.2.2 Data types

There are 4 scalar types (booleans, integers, floating point values and strings)
in the PHP language. The usage of these types is straight forward. The example
below illustrates assignment of the scalar types:
$theTruth = TRUE; //Value can be TRUE or FALSE
$age = 23;
$income = 0.0034;
$firstname = "Michael";
$lastname = Hansen;
There are also two compound types in PHP: objects and arrays. Objects are
used in Object Orientated Programming; a rather advanced technique, that you
will not use at first. Arrays are, on the other hand, important since you will be
using them heavily when interfacing databases (probably the number one reason
to use server-side scripting). Arrays are variables that contain more than one
value. The individual variables are accessed through indexes or keys. It may
sound abstract, but it is really quite simple: Imagine that a variable is a book
with several pages. The pages can either be numbered (starting with page 0)
or labeled with text labels (or both). Statements like What is on page 2 or
Set the content of page 3 to the number 45 would make sense. If the pages
were labeled you could state What is on the page labeled Introduction. In
PHP the syntax for manipulating arrays is implemented as illustrated in the
following examples:
<?php

//Creating an array with the array language construct

$a = array("This","is","an","array");

echo $a[2]; //prints "an"

//The first value in the array has index 0

//Arrays with keys

$b = array( color => red,
taste => sweet,

15
 shape => round,
name => apple);

echo $b[taste]; //prints "sweet"

//Creating arrays by assigning values

$c[color] = red;
$c[taste] = sweet;
$c[shape] = round;
$c[name] = apple;

echo $c[taste]; //Also prints "sweet"

//Assigning values through indexes

$d[0] = "Another";
$d[1] = "Test";

echo $d[1]; //Prints "Test"

?>
PHP does not support explicit type declaration. The type of a variable depends
on the context in which it is evaluated. If you try to output a variable (e.g.
with echo) it is evaluated as a string. If you try to add an integer to it, it is
evaluated as an integer and so on. This makes it a little easier to get started
with the language, because you dont need to worry about data types. On the
other hand it is left up to the programmer to keep track of data types. This can
cause unpredicted behavior if you are not careful.

5.2.3 Variables passed from HTML forms

An important discipline in server side scripting is passing information from
forms to PHP scripts for further processing. The simple application above (sec-
tion 4) is an example of this. The passing of information from forms to scripts is
very smoothly integrated in PHP. Consider the form created with the following
HTML code:
<form action="script.php" method="post">
First Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="first">
<p>
Last Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="last">
<p>
<input type="submit">
</form>
This form creates two input boxes (named first and last) and a submit but-
ton. When the submit button is clicked the contents of the form is sent to the
server. To be more precise the contents is sent to be processed by a script called
script.php. Lets look at the script script.php:

16
<html>

<head>
<title>Processing script</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Output</h1>
<?php
echo "Last name: ";
echo $last . "<br>";

echo "First name: $first";

?>
</body>

</html>
This little example illustrates the most important features for passing informa-
tion from forms to scripts (but also a few general features). You should notice
the following:
Variables with the same names as the names of the input boxes are auto-
matically generated for you. When you have an input box named first in
your HTML document, the contents of this input box will be available to
you in a variable named $first in the PHP script receiving the content
of the form.
Information can be written in web pages using the echo function (print
would have the same effect).
Strings are indicated by quotation marks.
Strings are concatenated (glued together) with the . operator.
Variable names within double quotation marks are evaluated before print-
ing the string. Had we used single quotation marks the variable name
would have been printed instead of the value (try replacing the double
quotation marks with single quotation marks).
You will be using string manipulation and forms heavily in your work with PHP
and I recommend that you consult the PHP manual frequently for information
on special string manipulation functions.

5.3 Control structures

All programming languages have a series of control structures for decision mak-
ing and controlling program flow. Instead of explaining every detail of these
structures, the script below illustrated the use of the most important of these
structures:

17
<?php
//if, elseif and else statements
$a = 2; $b = 3;

if ($a > $b) {

print "a is bigger than b";
} elseif ($a == $b) {
print "a is equal to b";
} else {
print "a is smaller than b";
}
//Would print "a is smaller than b"

//While loop
//Prints the numbers 1 through 10
$i = 1;
while ($i <= 10) {
print $i++;
//the printed value would be
//$i before the increment
//(post-increment)
}

//For loop
//Prints the numbers 1 through 10
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
print $i;
}

//Looping though arrays with foreach

$a = array ("one" => 1,
"two" => 2,
"three" => 3,
"seventeen" => 17);

foreach($a as $k => $v) {

print "$k: $v.<br>\n";
//Prints all keys and values
}

//Switch case statement

$i = 1;
switch ($i) {
case 0:
print "i equals 0";
break;
case 1:
print "i equals 1";
break;

18
 case 2:
print "i equals 2";
break;
}
//Prints "i equals 1"

?>
Use this brief review of the control structures as inspiration and consult the
PHP manual for details on syntax and variations of these control structures.

5.4 Functions
Functions are an essential part of any structured programming language. You
can think of functions as boxes you can feed values (arguments); the functions
process the arguments and return a result to the user (return value). PHP syntax
for creating such structures looks like this:
<?php

function add_values($num1, $num2) {

$result = $num1 + $num2;
return $result;
}

//Print 4
echo add_values(2,2);

?>
Arguments and return values can be any of the mentioned data types. You
should be aware that global variables (variables declared outside a function) are
not defined within a function unless explicitly stated with the global keyword:
<?php

$num1 = 2; $num2 = 2;

function add_values() {
//Import globals
global $num1, $num2;

//Calculate result
$result = $num1 + $num2;
return $result;
}

//Print 4
//Function with no arguments
echo add_values();

?>

19
5.5 Getting more information on the PHP language
With this brief review of the PHP language you should be able to get started
and to understand the examples in the remainder of this document. You will
however need more information on the PHP language as you move further.
The PHP web site (www.php.net) is an excellent resource for documentation,
downloads and links.

6 Interfacing databases
The number one reason to use server side scripting is probably to interface
databases. There are so many advantages to storing your web content in a
database and generate web pages on the fly and most of the programming pro-
cedures are quite simple, making it easy to get started. In this section we will
review some of the basic techniques for interfacing databases. Most of the basic
procedures are the same regardless of platform and database engine, but there
are some syntactical differences, and therefore we will review two scenarios: 1)
The classic apache web server and MySQL database and 2) the Microsoft way
(IIS and Access). But before we come to that we will need to take a look at an-
other programming language used to communicate with databases: Structured
Query Language (SQL).

6.1 Structured Query Language SQL

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a universal language used to communicate
with databases on most platforms. Different databases have small variations in
syntax and the number of available features vary from database to database.
The basic part of the language is however the same on all databases.
SQL is used to send queries (instructions and requests) to databases. The
commands needed for extracting and inserting information into databases are
limited to three commands:
1. SELECT. Used to extract information from the database.
2. INSERT. Create new records in the database.
3. UPDATE. Modify existing records from the database.
It sounds simple and it is! Aside from these functions there are functions for
modifying the structure of the database but you rarely need these functions in
your PHP scripts. We will review the three basic commands here and later we
will add more detail to SQL.

6.1.1 SELECT command

Whenever you need to extract information from a database, you use the SELECT
command. It has many variation but the basic form looks like this (The code
has intentionally been broken into two lines to fit the page, but that is not
necessary):
SELECT field1, field2, ... FROM tablename
WHERE criteria AND criteria OR criteria

20
It can be extended in many ways to include information from several tables etc.
Suppose you have a table in a database looking like this:
+----+-----------------------+------------+
| ID | name | startprice |
+----+-----------------------+------------+
| 1 | Michael Schumacher | 65 |
| 2 | Mika Hakkinen | 63 |
| 3 | David Coulthard | 50 |
| 4 | Rubins Barrichello | 46 |
| 5 | Jacques Villeneuve | 37 |
| 6 | Juan-Pablo Montoya | 32 |
| 7 | Ralf Schumacher | 40 |
| 8 | Giancarlo Fisichella | 25 |
| 9 | Oliver Panis | 23 |
| 10 | Heinz-Harald Frentzen | 20 |
| 11 | Jenson Button | 18 |
| 12 | Jarno Trulli | 16 |
| 13 | Nick Heidfeld | 11 |
| 14 | Jean Alesi | 10 |
| 15 | Eddie Irvine | 9 |
| 16 | Pedro de la Rosa | 8 |
| 17 | Luciano Burti | 8 |
| 18 | Kimi Raikkonen | 7 |
| 19 | Jos Verstappen | 7 |
| 20 | Enrique Bernoldi | 6 |
| 21 | Fernando Alonso | 5 |
| 22 | Tarso Marques | 4 |
+----+-----------------------+------------+
This is a table with 3 fields: ID, name and startprice. The table is called
drivers. If we wanted to select everything from this table we would write:
SELECT * FROM drivers
In many situation we would want to be a bit more specific. For instance we
might only be interested in a specific driver:
SELECT * FROM drivers WHERE ID = 14
This statements produces:
+----+------------+------------+
| ID | name | startprice |
+----+------------+------------+
| 14 | Jean Alesi | 10 |
+----+------------+------------+
Also we might not be interested in all the fields in the table:

SELECT name, startprice FROM drivers WHERE ID < 6

This statement produces:

21
+--------------------+------------+
| name | startprice |
+--------------------+------------+
| Michael Schumacher | 65 |
| Mika Hakkinen | 63 |
| David Coulthard | 50 |
| Rubins Barrichello | 46 |
| Jacques Villeneuve | 37 |
+--------------------+------------+
And that is basically what you need to extract basic information from tables.
Some of the later examples might be slightly more complicated, but the basic
concept is the same.

6.1.2 INSERT command

The INSERT command is used to create new records in the database. The syntax
is very simple:
INSERT INTO tablename (field1, field2, ...)
VALUES (value1, value2, ...)
Using the example from above we could insert a new driver into the table using
the following statement:
INSERT INTO drivers (name, startprice)
VALUES (Michael Hansen, 100)
Notice that text is enclosed in single quotation marks and also notice that in
this case we do not need to fill in all the fields in the table to create a record.
The ID field is (in this case) an auto incremental field that automatically creates
a new unique ID for every new driver.

6.1.3 UPDATE command

UPDATE is used to change existing fields in existing records. Syntax looks like
this:
UPDATE tablename SET field1 = value1, field2 = value2
WHERE condition
If we for instance wanted to change the name of the driver with ID = 2 we could
write:
UPDATE drivers SET name = Other name WHERE ID = 2
That is basically what you need to know about SQL to get you started.

6.2 Scenario: MySQL database

This section walks you through the basic tasks of extracting, inserting and
updating information with PHP and a MySQL database. The examples assumes
that you are working on a Unix type system running Apache and MySQL. Most
of the example code should however work on other systems as well.

22
6.2.1 Creating a database and a database user
Before we can manipulate data, we need to create a database and a database
user with the proper rights to manipulate the data. If you are already familiar
with creating databases and users in MySQL you can skip this section.
First you must log into the database. Type the following on the command
prompt:
[foo@bar fubaroh]$ mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
The login procedure should look something like the example above. You need to
know the root password for the MySQL server on your system. If it is a newly
installed system, the password is empty and you can just press enter to log in.
Your screen should look like this:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.

Your MySQL connection id is 23 to server version: 3.23.36

Type help; or \h for help. Type \c to clear the buffer

mysql>
Start by creating a new database:
mysql> create database testdb;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.16 sec)
You then need to start using that database and create a table in the database:
mysql> use testdb
Database changed

mysql> CREATE TABLE people (id int auto_increment primary key,

-> name varchar(255), age int);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.06 sec)
This means that we create a table with three fields:
1. id: Integer value. The field is an auto incremental field and it is also the
primary key of the table. Two records cant have the same id number.
2. name: A text field containing up to 255 characters.
3. age: An integer value.
You could test the table by inserting some values into it:
mysql> INSERT INTO people (name, age) VALUES (Michael, 88);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Then check if the information is in the table:

23
mysql> SELECT * FROM people;
+----+---------+------+
| id | name | age |
+----+---------+------+
| 1 | Michael | 88 |
+----+---------+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Notice that the id field has been set automatically to 1.
The last thing we need to do is to create a user for access to the database.
When connecting to the database from a PHP script, we need to specify a user.
If we use the root user, the script will in principle have unlimited rights. As
this represents a security risk we will create a user with limited rights and use
that user for access to the database.
The MySQL database has a privilege system. The system allows you to spec-
ify valid users and furthermore to specify what databases, tables and columns
the user have access to. You should consult the MySQL manual [5] for details
on the privileges system. The following illustrates how to create a user:
mysql> use mysql
Database changed

mysql> INSERT INTO user (Host, User, Password) VALUES

-> (localhost, testuser, password(testpass));
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
This creates a user with no rights. Notice the use of the password function.
This function creates an encrypted password. The user is allowed to log into
the database server but is not allowed to do anything. To grant the user some
rights we insert a record in the db table:
mysql> INSERT INTO db (Host, Db, User,
-> Select_priv, Insert_priv, Update_priv, Delete_priv)
-> VALUES (localhost, testdb, testuser,
-> Y, Y, Y, Y);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.04 sec)
This allows the user to use the database and specifically the user is allowed to
SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE records. To make the rights take
effect, the database server must reload the privilege tables. This is done with
the command:
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Now try to log out of the database with the command quit. You should then
be able to log back into the database with the new user and insert a record in
the people table:

mysql -u testuser -p testdb

Now try inserting the record:

24
mysql> INSERT INTO people (name, age) VALUES (Peter, 34);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM people;

+----+---------+------+
| id | name | age |
+----+---------+------+
| 1 | Michael | 88 |
| 2 | Peter | 34 |
+----+---------+------+
2 rows in set (0.06 sec)
If you on the other hand try dropping the table (deleting the entire table):
mysql> drop table people;
ERROR 1044: Access denied for user:
testuser@localhost to database testdb
You get an error message because the newly created user is not allowed to
remove the table. We now have a new database, a table and a secure user.

6.2.2 Extracting information from the database with PHP

The first thing we want to do with the new database is to extract the informa-
tion in the table (there are 2 records at the moment), and display them in a
table on a web page. We have already seen the SQL statement needed to extract
the information, all we need are the PHP commands to send the SQL statement
to the database. The procedure for contacting the database and displaying in-
formation looks like this (extract.php):
<html>

<head>
<title>Extracting data</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Extracting data</h1>

<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>ID</th><th>Name</th><th>Age</th></tr>
<tr>

<?php

//Establish link to database server

//$links holds a link to the connection
$link = mysql_connect("localhost","testuser","testpass");

//Select a database
mysql_select_db("testdb",$link);

25
//Create a variable holding
//the SQL statement.
$sql = "SELECT * FROM people";

//Send statement to database

//Store link to result
$result = mysql_query($sql);

//Extract one line at a time into an array

//and write HTML
while($record = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>" . $record["id"] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $record["name"] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $record["age"] . "</td></tr>\n";
}

//Close link to database

mysql_close($link);
?>
</table>

</html>
The example above can be used as a model whenever you need to send SELECT
queries to the database.

6.2.3 Creating new records with PHP

The next thing to do is to create an input form for creating new records
(create.html):
<html>

</head>
<title>Create new record</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Create new record</h1>
<form action="create.php" method="post">
Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="name">
<p>
Age:<br>
<input type="text" name="age" size="2">
<p>
<input type="submit"> <input type="reset">

26
</form>

</body>

</html>
Notice that the form sends the values from the form to a script called create.php.
With our knowledge of SQL and how values are passed from forms to scripts, it
is easy to implement the create.php script:
<html>
<head>
<title>Execute INSERT statement</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Execute INSERT statement</h1>

<?php
$link = mysql_connect("localhost","testuser","testpass");
mysql_select_db("testdb",$link);

$sql = "INSERT INTO people (name, age) VALUES ($name, $age)";

mysql_query($sql);

echo "Attempted SQL statement: <br>$sql";

if (!mysql_error($link)) {
echo "<p><b>Data inserted</b>";
} else {
echo mysql_error($link);
}

mysql_close($link);
?>

</body>
</html>
This script follows almost the same model as the script for extracting data. The
only real difference is the SQL statement. In this case it is an INSERT statement
instead of SELECT. A thing to notice is the primitive error handling. The script
uses the function mysql_error() to check if the SQL statement generated any
errors.

6.2.4 Updating records with PHP

It is a natural thing to implement an editor for the information already present
in the database. We will create a script that will display a certain record and
save any changes made to the record. The script should determine which record
to display from a query string in the URL. If we want to edit the record with
id = 2, we could type the following URL in the browser:

27
http://www.someserver.com/somefolder/editor.php?id=2
Parameters passed in query strings like above are available in the PHP scripts
as variables just like the parameters passed with the post method from forms.
The script editor.php would, in the case above, have a variable called $id with
the value 2. This makes it very easy to create an editor for the records. We will
design the editor in such a way, that it returns to the extraction script (the list
of data in the table) when the changes have been saved:
<?php

//If the id parameter is not set

//Redirect the browser
if (empty($id)) {
header("Location: extract.php");
exit;
}

$link = mysql_connect("localhost","testuser","testpass");
mysql_select_db("testdb",$link);

//If the parameter $change is recieved

//Update database.
//Change is sent from the form on this page
if (!empty($change)) {
$sql = "UPDATE people SET name = $name,";
$sql .= " age = $age WHERE id = $id";
mysql_query($sql);
mysql_close($link);
header("Location: extract.php");
exit;
}

$sql = "SELECT name, age FROM people WHERE id = $id";

$result = mysql_query($sql);
$person = mysql_fetch_array($result);
mysql_close($link);

?>

<html>
<head>
<title>Editor</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Editor</h1>
Editing record number: <?= $id ?> <br>
<p>
<form action="editor.php" method="post">
Name:<br>

28
<input type="text" name="name" value="<?= $person["name"] ?>">
<p>
<input type="text" name="age"
size="2" value="<?= $person["age"] ?>">

<p>
<input type="submit"> <input type="reset">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?= $id ?>">
<input type="hidden" name="change" value="1">
</form>
</body>

</html>
Although the database manipulation in this script is rather primitive, it does
contain a few new interesting features:
The first thing to notice is the check to see if there is a value in the param-
eter $id. If not, the users browser is directed to another page by sending
a header field instead of a web page. The Location header field causes the
browser to be redirected to another page. The header() function should
be used before any HTML in the document. The HTML causes the stan-
dard headers fields to be sent, and this prevents the header() function
from working properly.
There is also a check to see if the field variable named $change is defined.
This variable corresponds to a field in the form generated by the page
if $change is not defined. The field in the form is of type hidden. This
means that the field will not be visible to the user (unless he looks at the
source code) but the value will be sent. This is an easy way to send values
to scripts without the user knowing it.
The script takes advantage of a quick way to escape HTML mode and print
the value of a single expression in the document. The syntax <?= $id ?>
makes the script print the value of the $id variable in the resulting HTML
document. It is not particularly efficient to escape HTML mode multiple
times, but it can be very advantageous in situation such as the one above.

6.2.5 Finishing the application

One last thing to do, is to link each of the entries in the extraction table to the
editor script allowing easy access to the editor from the list of the data. This
could be done by changing the extraction script to:
<html>

<head>
<title>Extracting data</title>
</head>

<body>

29
<h1>Extracting data</h1>

<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>ID</th><th>Name</th><th>Age</th></tr>
<tr>

<?php

//Establish link to database server

//$link holds a link to the connection
$link = mysql_connect("localhost","testuser","testpass");

//Select a database
mysql_select_db("testdb",$link);

//Create a variable holding

//the SQL statement.
$sql = "SELECT * FROM people";

//Send statement to database

//Store link to result
$result = mysql_query($sql);

//Extract one line at a time into an array

//and write HTML
while($record = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>" . $record["id"] . "</td>";
echo "<td><a href=\"editor.php?id=". $record["id"] . "\">";
echo $record["name"] . "</a></td>";
echo "<td>" . $record["age"] . "</td></tr>\n";
}

//Close link to database

mysql_close($link);
?>
</table>

</html>
This concludes the tour of the basic MySQL facilities in PHP. There are many
other available database functions. Consult the PHP manual.

6.3 Scenario: Access database on Microsoft Windows 2000

Server
As already mentioned in section 3.2.3, PHP can only access a Microsoft Access
database through an ODBC source, so the syntax for calls to the Microsoft

30
Access database is general for all ODBC calls. This means, that if you wish to
use another database than MySQL or Microsoft Access, the syntax need not be
changed at all as long as your database system has an ODBC driver.
There will be no explanation on creating and editing databases with Mi-
crosoft Access in this manual.

6.3.1 Extracting information from the Microsoft Access database

with PHP
First of all, you have to setup the database and create an ODBC source with a
DSN name that you can use to access the database (for details see section 3.2.3).
In our examples below, it is assumed that you have Microsoft Access available
to create and manipulate a database.
Create a database called your_user_name.mdb and make a table called
people with the columns name and age. When asked for it, create a primary
key. Fill in some rows of test data, and save the database. Remember to change
the rights for the file. Now create the ODBC with testdb as your systemDSN
and fill in the your_user_name.mdb as the filename. Now your database is ready
for our PHP examples.
The first thing we want to do with the new database is to extract the infor-
mation in the table, and display it in a table on a web page. Since the call to the
ODBC source is general SQL, you already know how to make the query string.
The difference between MySQL and the ODBC call is not the query string, but
the PHP commands. We have made the same example as in the MySQL sce-
nario, so it is easy to see the similarities and differences between using MySQL
and using an ODBC source.
The procedure for contacting the database and displaying information looks
like this:
<html>

<head>
<title>Extracting data</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Extracting data</h1>

<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>ID</th><th>Name</th><th>Age</th></tr>
<tr>

<?php

//Establish link to database - notice that we establish the link

//directly to the database.
//$link holds a link to the connection
$link = odbc_connect("testdb","","")
// where testdb is the DSN name

31
//Notice that no username and password is supplied
//Access does not offer this kind of protection

//Create a variable holding

//the SQL statement.
$sql = "SELECT * FROM people";

//Send statement to database

//Store link to result
$result = odbc_exec($link, $sql);

//Extract one line at a time and store it in $record

//extract the different fields with odbc_result
//and write HTML
while(odbc_fetch_row($result)) {
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>" . odbc_result($result,"id") . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . odbc_result($result,"name") . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . odbc_result($result,"age") . "</td></tr>\n";
}

//Close link to database

odbc_close($link);
?>
</table>

</html>
The example above can be used as a model whenever you need to send SELECT
queries to the database.

6.3.2 Creating new records with PHP

The next thing to do is to create an input form for creating new records:
<html>

</head>
<title>Create new record</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Create new record</h1>
<form action="create.php" method="post">
Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="name">
<p>
Age:<br>
<input type="text" name="age" size="2">
<p>

32
<input type="submit"> <input type="reset">

</form>

</body>

</html>
Notice that the form sends the values from the form to a script called create.php.
With our knowledge of SQL and how values are passed from forms to scripts, it
is easy to implement the create.php script:
<html>
<head>
<title>Execute INSERT statement</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Execute INSERT statement</h1>

<?php
$link = odbc_connect("testdb","","");

$sql = "INSERT INTO people (name, age) VALUES ($name, $age)";

odbc_exec($link, $sql);

echo "Attempted SQL statement: <br>$sql";

if (!odbc_error($link)) {
echo "<p><b>Data inserted</b>";
} else {
echo odbc_error($link);
}

odbc_close($link);
?>

</body>
</html>
This script follows almost the same model as the script for extracting data. The
only real difference is the SQL statement. In this case it is an INSERT statement
instead of SELECT. A thing to notice is the primitive error handling. The script
uses the function odbc_error() to check if the SQL statement generated any
errors.

6.3.3 Updating records with PHP

It is a natural thing to implement an editor for the information already present
in the database. We will create a script that will display a certain record and
save any changes made to the record. The script should determine which record

33
to display from a query string in the URL. If we want to edit the record with
id = 2, we could type the following URL in the browser:
http://www.someserver.com/somefolder/editor.php?id=2
Parameters passed in query strings like above are available in the PHP scripts
as variables just like the parameters passed with the post method from forms.
The script editor.php would, in the case above, have a variable called $id with
the value 2. This makes it very easy to create an editor for the records. We will
design the editor in such a way, that it returns to the extraction script (the list
of data in the table) when the changes have been saved:
<?php

//If the id parameter is not set

//Redirect the browser
if (empty($id)) {
header("Location: extract.php");
exit;
}

$link = odbc_connect("testdb","","");

//If the parameter $change is recieved

//Update database.
//Change is sent from the form on this page
if (!empty($change)) {
$sql = "UPDATE people SET name = $name,";
$sql .= " age = $age WHERE id = $id";
odbc_exec($link,$sql);
odbc_close($link);
header("Location: extract.php");
exit;
}

$sql = "SELECT name, age FROM people WHERE id = $id";

$result = odbc_exec($link,$sql);
$person = array("name" => odbc_result($result, "name"),
"age" => odbc_result($result, "age");
odbc_close($link);

?>

<html>
<head>
<title>Editor</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Editor</h1>
Editing record number: <?= $id ?> <br>

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<p>
<form action="editor.php" method="post">
Name:<br>
<input type="text" name="name" value="<?= $person["name"] ?>">
<p>
<input type="text" name="age"
size="2" value="<?= $person["age"] ?>">

<p>
<input type="submit"> <input type="reset">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?= $id ?>">
<input type="hidden" name="change" value="1">
</form>
</body>

</html>
Although the database manipulation in this script is rather primitive, it does
contain a few new interesting features:
The first thing to notice is the check to see if there is a value in the param-
eter $id. If not, the users browser is directed to another page by sending
a header field instead of a web page. The Location header field causes the
browser to be redirected to another page. The header() function should
be used before any HTML in the document. The HTML causes the stan-
dard headers fields to be sent, and this prevents the header() function
from working properly.
There is also a check to see if the field variable named $change is defined.
This variable corresponds to a field in the form generated by the page
if $change is not defined. The field in the form is of type hidden. This
means that the field will not be visible to the user (unless he looks at the
source code) but the value will be sent. This is an easy way to send values
to scripts without the user knowing it.
The script takes advantage of a quick way to escape HTML mode and print
the value of a single expression in the document. The syntax <?= $id ?>
makes the script print the value of the $id variable in the resulting HTML
document. It is not particularly efficient to escape HTML mode multiple
times, but it can be very advantageous in situation such as the one above.

6.3.4 Finishing the application

One last thing to do, link each of the entries in the extraction table to the editor
script allowing easy access to the editor from the list of the data. This could be
done by changing the extraction script to:
<html>

<head>
<title>Extracting data</title>

35
</head>

<body>
<h1>Extracting data</h1>

<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>ID</th><th>Name</th><th>Age</th></tr>
<tr>

<?php

//Establish link to database

$link = odbc_connect("testdb","","");

//Create a variable holding

//the SQL statement.
$sql = "SELECT * FROM people";

//Send statement to database

//Store link to result
$result = odbc_exec($link, $sql);

//Extract one line at a time

//extract each field with odbc_result
//and write HTML
while(odbc_fetch_row($result)) {
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>" . odbc_result($result, "id") . "</td>";
echo "<td><a href=\"editor.php?id="
. odbc_result($result, "id") . "\">";
echo odbc_result($result, "name") . "</a></td>";
echo "<td>" . odbc_result($result,"age") . "</td></tr>\n";
}

//Close link to database

odbc_close($link);
?>
</table>

</html>
This concludes the tour of the basic ODBC facilities in PHP. There are many
other available database functions. Consult the PHP manual.

References
[1] PHP manual. Url: http://www.php.net/manual. Complete online reference
with comments from users.

36
[2] Michael Schacht Hansen. A short introduction to HTML and CSS. Url:
http://www.intermed.dk/php.
[3] Gnu emacs. Url http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs. A free, multipurpose
texteditor. Features highligting for several programming languages.
[4] Ultraedit. Url http://www.ultraedit.com. A shareware, multipurpose texte-
ditor. Only available for Windows.

[5] MySQL manual. Url: http://www.mysql.com/doc/. Complete online refer-

ence with comments from users.

37