HTML Button list within PHP "For Loop" not working

Question

I seem to be having a very simple problem but I can't wrap my head around the issue. Thanks in advance for any help you may have.

First, here is a description of the code: The following snippet of code is from a user's activity page. This snipped displays all bids that have been placed on a user's "canvas."

<table  width="400" align=center frame=below>

    <ul>
    <?php for ($j = 0 ; $j < $numBids ; ++$j) { $cbid= mysql_fetch_row($bids); ?>   
     <li><strong>$<?php echo "$cbid[2]"; ?>.00 </strong> by <a href="profile.html?view=<?php echo "$cbid[4]"; ?>"><?php $name=getUser($cbid[4]); echo "$name"; ?></a>
     <br/>"<?php echo "$cbid[3]"; ?>"<br/>

     <p align=CENTER>

     <!-- Message Artist-->
     <form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=<?php echo $cbid[4]; ?>" >    
    <input type="submit" name="message" value="Message Artist" > 
    </form>

    <!-- Accept Bid-->
     <form method="post" action="contract.html?bid=<?php echo "$cbid[0]"; ?>" class="login-form">                       
    <input type="submit" value="ACCEPT BID!" > 
    </form>

    </p>

     </li>                                  
    <?php   } ?>                                    
   </ul>

If $numBids = 3, The html output of this code is:

    <ul>

     <li><strong>$150.00 </strong> by <a href="profile.html?view=169&sid=d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9">Artist Name</a>
     <br/>"I would like to paint this in acrylic."<br/>

     <p align=CENTER>
     <!-- Message Artist-->
     <form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=151" ><input type="hidden" name="sid" value="d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9" />    
    <input type="submit" name="message" value="Message Artist" > 
    </form>
    <!-- Accept Bid-->
     <form method="post" action="contract.html?bid=76" class="login-form"><input type="hidden" name="sid" value="d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9" />                       
    <input type="submit" value="ACCEPT BID!" > 
    </form>
    </p>

     </li>                                  

     <li><strong>$150.00 </strong> by <a href="profile.html?view=169&sid=d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9">Artist Name</a>
     <br/>"I would like to paint this in acrylic."<br/>

     <p align=CENTER>
     <!-- Message Artist-->
     <form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=151" ><input type="hidden" name="sid" value="d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9" />    
    <input type="submit" name="message" value="Message Artist" > 
    </form>
    <!-- Accept Bid-->
     <form method="post" action="contract.html?bid=72" class="login-form"><input type="hidden" name="sid" value="d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9" />                       
    <input type="submit" value="ACCEPT BID!" > 
    </form>
    </p>

     </li>                                  

     <li><strong>$150.00 </strong> by <a href="profile.html?view=169&sid=d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9">Artist Name</a>
     <br/>"I would like to paint this in acrylic."<br/>

     <p align=CENTER>
     <!-- Message Artist-->
     <form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=169" ><input type="hidden" name="sid" value="d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9" />    
    <input type="submit" name="message" value="Message Artist" > 
    </form>
    <!-- Accept Bid-->
     <form method="post" action="contract.html?bid=70" class="login-form"><input type="hidden" name="sid" value="d0ba8340cdb156c233baf364960ac3e9" />                       
    <input type="submit" value="ACCEPT BID!" > 
    </form>
    </p>

     </li>                                  

   </ul>

A live test version of the page has been set up: http://www.canvasmatch.com/test/activity.html.

Now to the problem:

If a user clicks the "Message Artist" button, the user jumps to a messages page where the can send a message to the artist, obviously. This button works for all bids EXCEPT on the first one. If you were to click the first "Message Artist" button it would just refresh the page, incorrectly. However if you clicked the second "Message Artist" button it would jump to messages.html appropriately. If there were say 6 bids, all of the "Message Artist" buttons would work EXCEPT the first one.

The weird thing for me is that all "Accept Bid" buttons work, even the first one.

Has anybody experienced anything like this before? Any thoughts on what I should be looking for? Do you need the entire html file to find the problem?

I appreciate any help you can provide!

Thanks,

Jake

It would be great to see the HTML this outputs to see if there are any obvious errors there. — Christian
– Christian, Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 4:05
send me your php script to [email protected] so i can look at it in full detail. so i can test/edit and give you the exact cause. — James Williams
– James Williams, Commented Oct 4, 2011 at 6:16

Christian · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-04 06:33:18Z

1

Basically, when you inspect the element with Firebug you'll see it's not encapsulated within a form. Something strange is going on because the HTML actually looks fine for that particular element. The rest of the document is full of errors though, so while I can't pinpoint it directly, I'd recommend first at least fixing the majority of the errors that can be found by doing a W3C Validation test. I can almost guarantee that it'll work once these are fixed.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.canvasmatch.com%2Ftest%2Factivity.html

answered Oct 4, 2011 at 6:33

Christian

19.8k3 gold badges57 silver badges70 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Jake Over a year ago

Thank you very much. I haven't actually used validator.w3.org before but this definitely helps highlight some of the issues. In particularly, we were using a <form> to define a CSS element which resulted in nested forms.

Christian Over a year ago

Awesome! It's helped me a lot over the years, glad it was able to help you too :)

Jason Gennaro · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-04 04:01:05Z

0

It looks like you need quotes around $cbid[4]

Current:

<form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=<?php echo $cbid[4]; ?>" >

Change to

<form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=<?php echo "$cbid[4]"; ?>" >

answered Oct 4, 2011 at 4:01

Jason Gennaro

34.9k9 gold badges67 silver badges86 bronze badges

1 Comment

Jake Over a year ago

Thanks. I added the quotes but that didn't fix the issue. The first "Message Artist" button is still a dead link.

dan · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-04 04:34:35Z

0

If $numBids = 3, The html output of this code is:

Are you setting $numBids to 3 each iteration? If it is a comparison, it should be $numBids == 3 but it's a bit ambiguous because the snippet is not in the code block.

answered Oct 4, 2011 at 4:34

dan

8569 silver badges20 bronze badges

1 Comment

Jake Over a year ago

No, I am not setting $numBids to 3. I simply wrote that out for reference. I could post the entire php file as well if that would be helpful (and not overwhelming).

James Williams · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-05 05:08:28Z

0

The issue is the increment for $j. The for statement should look like:

for ($j = 0 ; $j < $numBids ; $j++)

++$j increments first then does the loop so instead of the first time being 0, it ends up 1. The quotations around the variable in the php script is not necessary.

I do have a question, Why are you using a for loop instead of a while loop with a counter defined before the loop and an increment at the end?

EDIT

Just remembered had an issue with a gallery that I was using forms on and the first one did not work. To fix, I had to add a random string name to each one. Try adding a name to each form tag with a random generated string or number.

Example:

 <form method="post" action="messages.html?msg=151" class="login-form" name="fEd5t89">

Edit - Working

After looking at the files it was found that this was a nested <form>. After removing the wrapping <form>, the page started working properly.

edited Oct 5, 2011 at 5:08

answered Oct 4, 2011 at 4:21

James Williams

4,2261 gold badge21 silver badges35 bronze badges

10 Comments

Jake Over a year ago

The increment order doesn't solve the problem, if there are 3 bids placed it will still display all 3. Even if that was the problem I don't see how it would cause the first button to be a dead link. Could the problem reside in the fact that I'm not using a while loop?

James Williams Over a year ago

it is possible but it may not help, if the data is the same for each one. do you have a test page that I can look at something live.

Jake Over a year ago

I added a live test version. Please see the link above, below the html output code

James Williams Over a year ago

In your test the first message button has no form elements. I would check the varibles that are being passed by echoing them first, at the beginning of the for loop. Can you add an echo of the varibles used to create the form and turn on error reporting using error_reporting(E_ALL);?

Jake Over a year ago

I added error_reporting(E_ALL); but nothing new has shown up. I am not passing any variables through the form. I am simply using the button as a hyperlink. What confuses me is that the code for the first "Message Artist" button is identical to the second button, but the first doesn't work.

|

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

HTML Button list within PHP "For Loop" not working

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

1 Comment

1 Comment

EDIT

Edit - Working

10 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

1 Comment

1 Comment

EDIT

Edit - Working

10 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related