PHP - Track Session Requests?

It's been a while since I've needed to whip anything substantial up from scratch, so my scripting is a little (lot) fast and loose (weird/inefficient) here.

I'm trying to mock up a script that's essentially a quiz/survey. There are a handful of topics, each with a few screens of yes/no questions. At the end, it returns a list of recommendations based on the answers gathered.

The script is posting back to itself. Using print_r ($_SESSION), it seems like all of the post values for the first screen of questions are being assigned to the session array as expected. When the second screen of questions is answered, their values are assigned as well, but the values for the first set go away completely. This continues through subsequent screens, with the values from the previous screen present and all others before missing.

I'd really appreciate a look at my code to see if you tell me the cause or error(s).

Thanks!


<?php
session_start;
include('_config.php');

// database connect
$dbc = mysqli_connect($CFG->dbhost, $CFG->dbuser, $CFG->dbpass, $CFG->dbname);

// set to section 1, page 1 if no values are in _POST array
  if (($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] ==  'GET') || (!isset($_POST['section']))) {
   $section = 1;
   $page  = 1;
  }
  else {
// something was posted, so...set those values in session variable
foreach($_POST as $key => $data) { 
$_SESSION[$key] = $data; 
}
// debug: display contents of the session array
print_r ($_SESSION);

// which section and page?
   $section = (int) $_POST['section'];
   $page  = (int) $_POST['next'];
  }

// check if last topic
$query = "SELECT * FROM hw_topics";
$data = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);
  if ($section == mysqli_num_rows($data)) {
    $last_section = true; 
  }
  else {
    $last_section = false;
  }

// get current topic name and info
$query = "SELECT topic, display_name, pages_in_topic FROM hw_topics WHERE topic_id = '$section'";
$data = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);
if (mysqli_num_rows($data) == 1) {
  $row = mysqli_fetch_array($data);
  $topic_display_name = $row['display_name'];
  $pages_in_topic = $row['pages_in_topic'];
  }

// test if last page in topic
$topic_pages = $row['pages_in_topic'];
if ($page == $topic_pages) {
    $last_page_in_section = true;
  }
  else {
    $last_page_in_section = false;
  }

// set form action (set to this script or to recommendations when last section is complete 
if (($last_section == true) && ($last_page_in_section == true)) {
    $form_action = $CFG->reccomend;
  }
  else {
    $form_action = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
  }

// get current page headline
$query = "SELECT page_headline FROM hw_pages WHERE topic_id = '$section' AND page_number = '$page'";
$data = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);

if (mysqli_num_rows($data) == 1) {
  // The headline row was found so display the headline
  $row = mysqli_fetch_array($data);
  $page_headline = '<h2>' . $row['page_headline'] . '</h2>';
  }


// Grab the question data from the database to generate the list and form fields
$query = "SELECT question_id, question_number, question_text FROM hw_questions WHERE topic_id = '$section' AND page_id = '$page' ORDER BY question_number";
$data = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);
$questions = array();
  while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($data)) {
    array_push($questions, $row);
  }

include($CFG->includesdir.'/header.php');
?>
<div id="head">
<h1>Assessment<?php if (isset($topic_display_name)) { echo ': <em>' . $topic_display_name  . '</em>'; } ?></h1>
<p class="paging">Page <?php echo $page; ?> of <?php echo $pages_in_topic; ?></p>
</div><!-- #head -->
<div id="content">
<p class="instr">Please complete this survey. We'll generate a list of recommendations and resources for your organization.</p>

<div id="questions">
<?php echo $page_headline; ?>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $form_action; ?>">

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<thead>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td class="qtext"></td>
<td class="qanswer">yes</td>
<td class="qanswer">no</td>
<td class="pad"></td>
</tr>
</thead>

<?php 
if ($questions) { 
    // display question rows
    foreach ($questions as $question) {
      echo '<tr>';
      echo '<td class="qnumber">' . $question['question_number'] . '.</td>';
      echo '<td class="qtext"><p>...' . $question['question_text'] . '</p></td>';
      echo '<td class="qanswer"><div class="radio" id="box-yes"><input type="radio" value="yes" name="qid_' . $question['question_id'] . '" id="qid_' . $question['question_id'] . '" class="radio" /></div></td>';
      echo '<td class="qanswer"><div class="radio" id="box-no"><input type="radio" value="no" name="qid_' . $question['question_id'] . '" id="qid_' . $question['question_id'] . '" class="radio"';
      $field_name = 'qid_' . $question['question_id'];
      if (isset($_SESSION[$field_name])) {
        echo ' checked="checked"';
      }
      echo ' /></div></td>';
      echo '<td class="pad"></td>';
      echo '</tr>';
    }
  }
  else {
    echo '<tr>';
    echo '<td colspan="3" class="qtext"><p>No questions found in the database for this page.</p></td>';
    echo '<td class="pad"></td>';
    echo '</tr>';
  }
?>
</table>

<ul id="controls">
<?php 
if ($last_page_in_section == true) 
  { 
  $section++; 
  $page = 1; 
  } 
  else {
  $page++;
  }
  echo '<input type="hidden" value="' . $section . '" name="section" />';
  echo '<input type="hidden" value="' . ($page) . '" name="next" />';
  if (($last_section == true) &&  ($last_page_in_section == true)) {
    echo '<li><input type="submit" value="Submit Answers and Get Recommendations" name="submit" id="submit" /></li>';
  }
  else {
    echo '<li><input type="submit" value="Next Page" name="submit" id="next" /></li>'; 
  }
?>
</ul><!-- #controls -->
</form>
</div><!-- #questions -->

<?php
mysqli_close($dbc);
include($CFG->includesdir.'/footer.php');
?>

I was just wondering if when I write a new function that uses AJAX should I use the same http request for my whole website or should I make seperate ones for each function?  Also if you use the same one do you need to do anything to it once it has been used to set the ready status back to 0?

Thanks

Hi,

I am trying to make a web interface for a robot, I have written php to send/recieve values via a serial port to my robot. They work.

I am now tring to develop my web interface.

I'm using java to generate http requests client side in the form of;
Code: [Select]
/request?command=Forward&param1=254
I was wondering how I can parse the command and param1 in php sereverside?

Or is there a better alternative?

Hello!

I'm trying to understand exactly how http requests relate to a php script. 

1)  What would be considered a large amount?
2)  How can I see how many I have for a given page?

Thank you,

Eric

I think it's fsockopen that enables you to do web requests right?? I was wondering if you could also make it use a proxy instead of your website's IP. Would that be possible?