Gaining facility with php

[emdiar]

I'm getting to the point where I can actually have an idea and make it happen even if it's not just a variation on one of the projects in the books I've been working through. Friday i decided it would be cool to have a series of checkboxes, one for each day of the week, then take the checked values and  have the day names output as a string with

Comments

[literalman]

Does PHP allow "SELECT vegetables FROM refrigerator WHERE type = ? AND status <> ?

[emdiar]

I actually jumpd over to SQL for that part. I should have commented that line with a note to that effect.

[literalman]

Actually, I was interested as to whether PHP allows parameterized SQL (i.e. bind variables) --  for efficiency, to sidestep backslash hell, and to avoid SQL injection attacks. Thanks

[emdiar]

I see. This is how much of a noob I am.

As I understand it, "bind variables" basically means using variables in a SQL query so the query can be reused without being rewritten. Is that about right? If so, then yes.

[digitalsidhe]

It doesn't seem like much, but hey, I'm a noob.

Actually, it sounds like a great learning exercise: A step or two above trivial, but not so difficult that it takes days and days of work. It solves a real-world problem, rather than some abstract puzzle, and it's something that can be solved with some intelligence and effort, but doesn't require some creative "A-ha!" realization. I like it!

While reading, I was expecting you to say it should print out a list of weekday names with "and" in the right place, which is a problem I wrote a function for a long time back. Interpolating a list with "through" is a different problem, and one I'm going to have to ponder a bit once the caffeine kicks in.

[emdiar]

I figure if I'm going to be teaching myself I might as well also end up with some useful code. And I'm glad to report that it did not in fact take days and days, although I am looking forward to being able to do something like this in a lot less time than this took.

When I implement this on the site I'm making it for I'm going to use abbreviated day names, and an em dash instead of "through." It's for a part of a site that has space limitations, so I'm trying to shorten the display of the list of days the client's business is open.

[emdiar]

I'm very interested in seeing other methods of solving the problem, partly to learn other ways of doing things and also to learn whether I'm doing something inefficiently or in a manner that is not secure. If you come up with a solution I'd love to compare notes. I'll send you my script if you'd like to see it.

[digitalsidhe]

Why don't I take a whack at it without first seeing your version, just so it doesn't bias me?