Extract text from text file & put in dropdown box

tsukey · July 20th, 2004, 04:18 AM

Hi,

Tried a lot of times didn't work,so asking.
I want to extract the text inside and create 2 dropdown boxes. So, one dropdown box will contain racket,shuttlecock,tennis ball etc. The other dropbox will appear after user choose the option from first dropbox.

Eg: if user borrow racket, the 2nd dropbox will show how many left, eg. 3 left. However, after pressing a button to borrow 1 racket, the text file need to be updated.

I have a text file(records.txt) like this:
racket;3 available;
shuttlecock;6 available;
tennis ball;4 available;
football;3 available;
:

richard.york · July 20th, 2004, 04:43 AM

For the first part of question, dynamically populating the second drop down menu based on what is selected with the first is a JavaScript question.

For the second part of the question, PHP has a number of built-in functions for handling text files.

Here's a simple example of getting the contents of a text file.
This approach uses the fgetcsv function, since the text file is structured like a csv file. (comma separated values)
http://www.php.net/fgetcsv

Code:

// Open the products.txt file read only.
$handle = fopen('products.txt', 'r');

// iterate through each line of the file.
// read up to 1000 characters per line of data, use a semi-colon instead of a comma as the data separator.

while (FALSE !== ($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ';')))
{
   // $data is an array that contains all of the information from that line.
   $product[]    = $data[0];
   $inventory[]  = $data[1];
}

fclose($handle);

This should produce output like this:

Code:

$product[0]   = 'racket';
$inventory[0] = '3 available';
$product[1]   = 'shuttlecock';
$inventory[1] = '6 available';

//.. etc.

Then at this point you can populate a <select> element with the data. If I have time I'll demonstrate how to do the javascript part of it later (not-with-standing that someone else on the list doesn't do it in the meantime:)).

HTH!

Regards,
Rich

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Spicy Peanut Project
http://www.spicypeanut.net
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

richard.york · July 20th, 2004, 05:01 AM

Of course, it goes without saying, that an RDBMS would be much better suited for the storage of the product data. Opening files can be costly in terms of resource consumption.

Regards,
Rich

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Spicy Peanut Project
http://www.spicypeanut.net
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

tsukey · July 20th, 2004, 08:37 PM

<?php
$handle = fopen('products.txt','r'); //open products.txt,read only

// iterate through each line of the file.
// read up to 1000 characters per line of data, use a semi-colon instead
//of a comma as the data separator.

while (FALSE !== ($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ';')))
{
   // $data is an array that contains all of the information from
   // line.
   $product[] = $data[0];
   $inventory[] = $data[1];
}

fclose($handle);

   echo '<select name="product" onChange="JumpMenu(this)">';
         echo '<option>------------------------</option>';
         echo '<option>$product[]</option>';

   echo '</select>';
?>

tsukey · July 20th, 2004, 08:39 PM

I did the code like this. but don't seem to look right..

tsukey · July 20th, 2004, 09:49 PM

Hi, Sorry for earlier code..
I managed to get the text into dropdown box.
But uhmm, I got a problem now.
Instead of having a 2nd dropdown box, I think I will just have a input there like this:

Available : 2

This appears when user choose the respective item.

But how to code that?

COdes:

<?php
$handle = fopen('poroducts.txt','r'); //open products.txt,read only

while (FALSE !== ($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ';')))
{
   // $data is an array that contains all of the information from that
   // line.
   $product[] = $data[0];
   $inventory[] = $data[1];
}
fclose($handle);
   echo "Select product:";
   echo "<select name='product'>";
         echo "<option>------------------------</option>";
         foreach ($product as $prod){
         echo "<option>$prod</option>";
         }
   echo "</select><p>";

   echo"Availability:";

   echo "$inventory[0]"; //the part I think need to edit.

?>