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PHP - Macro Substitution

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Macro Substitution	View Content

function emptyzipcode($request) {
global $requestslimit,$postal1,$postal2,$postal3,$postal4,$postal5,$postal6,$postal7,$postal8,$postal9,$postal10;

   $string = '(';
   for ($x = $request+1; $x <= 9; $x++) {
       $string = $string . '!empty($postal' . $x . ') or ';
   }

$string = $string . '!empty($postal10))';
$postal='postal'. $request;

   echo $string;
   echo "<br/><br/>";
   echo $$postal;
   echo "<br/><br/>";
   echo $postal2;

if (empty($$postal) and $$string){
   echo '<h2><font color="red">Failed!</font></h2>';
   echo '<h3>Request #' . $request . ' Zip Code Empty!</h3>';
       exit();
   }
}

I want to able to use the variable $string as a condition in the if statement; for example $string="(!empty($postal5) or !empty($postal6) or !empty($postal7) or !empty($postal8) or !empty($postal9) or !empty($postal10))"

Does anybody know how to do this? Thanks

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Inconsistent Variable Substitution

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I'm encountering some inconsistent behaviour with respect to variable substitution. I hope someone here can help me figure out why.

Let me explain what I'm trying to do. I am working on a prototype that is supposed to display a simple three-column MySQL table in ascending order by one or the other of the three columns. Exactly the same data (rows and columns) is shown each time; only the sequence of the rows differs. To accomplish this, I show the user a form with three radio buttons in a single group. The user chooses the radio button that represents the column which is to be used in the sort, then presses Submit. That invokes a script that contains PHP. The script reads the value passed from the form, which is the name of one of the three columns of the table, Series, Character, or Actor. and stores it in a variable name $SortKey. Then, the variable is used in ORDER BY clause of the SQL Query to cause sorting on that column. This all works perfectly for the first and third columns, Series and Actor. But when script executes for the column named Character, the result is an empty table. There is no error message of any kind.

I'm baffled by this. Obviously, my approach is correct otherwise the first and third columns would fail as well. But I can't see anything different about the second column. I'm very new to PHP but know HTML quite well and have substantial experience with Java and a little bit with Perl so I'm not new to programming by a long shot.

Here's the form, which is called Captains_form.php:
Code: [Select]
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/main.css" media="screen"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/print.css" media="print"/>
</head>
<body>

<h1>Enterprise Captains</h1>

<p>You can view the list of Enterprise Captains in any of the following sequences:</p>

<form action="Captains.php" method="post">
<input type="radio" name="sort" value="Series" /> Series (ascending)<br />
<input type="radio" name="sort" value="Character" /> Character (ascending)<br />
<input type="radio" name="sort" value="Actor" /> Actor (ascending)<br />
<input type="submit" />
</form>

</body>
</html>

Here's the script, which is called Captains.php:
Code: [Select]
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/main.css" media="screen"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/print.css" media="print"/>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Enterprise Captains List</h2>
<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost:3306","my_All","******");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

mysql_select_db("my_Sandbox", $con);

//echo $_POST["sort"];
$SortKey=$_POST["sort"];

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Captains order by $SortKey");

echo "<table border='1' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='0'>";
echo "<tr class='heading'><th>Series</th><th>Character</th><th>Actor</th></tr>";

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  echo "<tr class='detail'><td>" . $row['Series'] . "</td><td>" . $row['Character'] . "</td><td>" . $row['Actor'] . "</td></tr>";
  }
echo "</table>";

mysql_close($con);
?>

</body>
</html>

Can anyone tell me why the second column, Character, produces an empty result when I select it on the form?

Also, if there is an error message being produced when the query executes, how can I get it? I think I'm handing errors in the connection correctly but I'm not sure how to detect an error in the execution of the query.