learning the hard way

Honestly, I don't mind learning the hard way. I feel good that I stuck it out. But I look back at all the attempts, the searching for code to disect, the failed attempts...ugh, what a heck of a lot of time spent!

I've been posting this problem for some time. I'lll post my findings to help anyone out there who might be having the same problem...

I posted:

Array Question-

Wanted to pull just rows from the db that had a specific word ( entry ) in it, all the rows containing that word. The word was entered from a form. For more info, see the above post.

Here is what I did to get ALL the rows containing a key word (passes on from a post(form)) that was in a specific column. Took me forever!


$db_name = "books";
$table_name = "bookinput";
$connection = @mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "pass") or die(mysql_error());
$db = @mysql_select_db($db_name, $connection) or die(mysql_error());
$query = "SELECT * FROM $table_name WHERE mediatype = '".$mediachoice."' ORDER BY title";
$result= @mysql_query($query, $connection) or die(mysql_error());
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$title = stripslashes($row['title']);
$authorname = stripslashes($row['authorname']);
$mediatype = $row['mediatype'];
$subject = $row['subject'];
$publisher = stripslashes($row['publisher']);
$edition = stripslashes($row['edition']);
$isbn = stripslashes($row['isbn']);
$quantity = stripslashes($row['quantity']);
$location = stripslashes($row['location']);
$description = stripslashes($row['description']);
$display_block .="
<p><strong>$title</strong> (<STRONG>$authorname</STRONG>, $publisher)<br>
$description(<em>location: </em> $location,<em> mediatype:</em> $mediatype, <em>edition:</em> $edition,<em> isbn#: </em>$isbn, <em>quantity:</em> $quantity.)</p>";
}
?>


The problem I was having was the $query. -I finally got it my putting the inputted variable "mediachoice" in the '".$mediachoice."' in this format, otherwise I was finding syntax errors. The "mediachoice" is the choice from a form function passes from a prior page.

Boy, I hope I am helping. I don't use the proper terms all the time, since I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed , but I'm trying.

Thanks for everyone's help agian.
We still haven't had snow in Alaska yet...almost a record!
I'm not complain'in

we learn the hardway