Re: Creating and processing forms that access a database

[Kyle Cook <kyle@invisio.com>]

This may help with the first question:

On a MV page use a form like:

<form action="[process-target]" method="POST">
<input type="Hidden" name="mv_doit" value="return">
<input type="Hidden" name="mv_nextpage" value="template.html">
Name: <input type="Text" name="name" size="25" maxlength="100"><br>
<input type="Submit" name="mv_submit" value="Send">
</form>

Then on template.html

[value name] returns the value entered in the text box 'name'

or inside perl tags:

[perl values]
return $Safe{'values'}{name};
[/perl]

Kyle Cook



At 11:48 PM 8/14/99 +0300, you wrote:
>******    message to minivend-users from "Reuven M. Lerner" 
><reuven@lerner.co.il>     ******
>
>I thought that I had figured out how to use MiniVend, but I'm trying
>to accomplish something seeming simple, and getting nowhere fast.
>
>I have to use MiniVend for a task that I know how to accomplish with
>CGI: Submitting a form to the server, and having a CGI program
>retrieve the form elements, use them to query an SQL database, and
>give the results to the user.
>
>Specifically, I would like to know two things:
>
>(1) What is the generic way for me to create a form that is processed
>    by a MiniVend template of my choosing?  That is, I would like to
>    create MiniVend template form.html, whose "submit" button passes
>    the HTML form elements to MiniVend template results.html.  I have
>    been playing with forms, the "mv_doit" hidden tag, and and the
>    [value] MiniVend template tag, without much success.
>
>    So, how do I duplicate CGI functionality with MiniVend?  I don't
>    care about the underlying technology, but it's frustrating not to
>    know how to pick out form elements.
>
>    Must I got through the "search" program?  What does that gain me?
>
>(2) I know that MiniVend's query engine is supposed to handle most or
>    all of the SQL queries that I might like.  But I would like to
>    give users a choice of <select> fields in an form, and then
>    perform an OR match on them.  That is, I would like the resulting
>    SQL query to look like
>
>	SELECT id, product_name
>	FROM Products
>	WHERE product.region = 1
>	OR product.target_population = 2
>	OR product.price = 3
>
>    If I use mv_searchfield and mv_searchspec, then it would seem that
>    MiniVend always performs an AND search.  I want users to be able
>    to create an arbitrarily loose or tight search, narrowing things
>    as necessary by choosing more elements from <select> lists.
>
>Any ideas?  I have been reading the documentation for days, and cannot
>find an obvious solution to either of the above.
>
>Reuven
>
>-
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