Is there a way to use a message box with PHP?

patpawlowski · 02-19-2004, 07:54 AM

I am working on a page in PHP that deletes a record from a MySQL database but I would like a pop-up type confirmation. Similar, I think, to VBS's msgbox function. Is there anything like this available in PHP? I could always do an intermediate page to accomplish the same thing but a simple pop up would be simple. Any ideas?

codedv · 02-19-2004, 11:22 AM

You would need to use a client side script for that. Javascripts's confirm(); function will pop-up a message and return true or false depending on whether or not the user pressed ok or not. Here's a simple example which uses check boxes and a form:

Code:

<html>
<head>
	<title>Delete Confirmation</title>
	<script language="JavaScript1.1">
		<!--
		function confirm_delete ()
		{
			// You could put code here to count the number of items selected
			
			return confirm ("Are you sure you want to delete the selected records??");
		}
		-->
	</script>
</head>
	<body>
		<form action="delete.php" method="post" onsubmit="return confirm_delete();">
			<input type="checkbox" name="record1" />&nbsp;&nbsp;Record1<br />
			<input type="checkbox" name="record2" />&nbsp;&nbsp;Record2<br />
			<input type="checkbox" name="record3" />&nbsp;&nbsp;Record3<br />
			<input type="submit" value="Delete" />
		</form>
	</body>
</html>

Simply returning false at the onsubmit event will prevent the form from being submitted.

I have put the page on my web server; if you want to give it a try it's here:
www.codedv.com/adam/delete.html

patpawlowski · 02-20-2004, 08:43 AM

Thanks for the code. I will try to incorporate it today.

patpawlowski · 02-23-2004, 12:55 PM

OK, I used the code and it worked exactly the way you said, but. . . . I would like to better understand what's happening. I looked up the onsubmit attribute at w3.org but it didn't give much information, at least that I could find. I understand the when you submit the form the script assigned the onsubmit attribute is called. What I don't undetstand is where is the decision being made? I assume that this particular script will return a true or false and if it's false nothing happens, the form isn't submitted. Is this the purpose of the onsubmit attribute? I would assume that it's purpose is simply to provide a way run a script the the form is submitted.

I'm sure this is pretty basic, but I just want to understand in case I could use it later.

codedv · 02-23-2004, 06:38 PM

Its like you said. onsubmit is an event which is raised when the client attempts to submit the form. If it returns true then the form will be submitted and if it returns false it won't.

You can use the event to do some client side validation of data. e.g. a credit card number. Its worth remembering that even if you validate data client side you should always re-validate it server side. If your user has Javascript disabled - so will the onsubmit event.