Shannon Doyle wrote :

 > What I can't seem to get my head around is how am I
 > going to script the php calc/query etc based on the fact
 > that the information coming from the previous page
 > could be different each time it is submitted. ie, the
 > names of the select fields will change.

Hi Shannon.

It's straightforward to conceptualize this once you realize that the query 
itself can be expressed as a variable :

$result = mysql_query($query);

Now the thing to do is break the query into its static and variable pieces, 
write routines to supply the variable parts and then compose the whole 
thing into a single valid SQL statement. At least that's the way I do this 
kind of thing.

For example, you may already be used to coding something like :

$query  = "select a,b,c from my_Data where Key = $id;";

It's just a bit more work to then say :

$query  = "select $x,$y,$z from my_Data where $field = $id;";

You could even make the table name into a variable. It's not as confusing 
in my experience if you make liberal use of the command line, i.e. telnet 
on *nix or ISQL on NT as a debugging aid.

For developing this in the least painless manner I recommend writing each 
little piece of it at a time and verifying that it works before proceeding 
to the next thing.

HTH,

Marty

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