HOW TO INSERT FORM DATA INTO A MYSQL
DATABASE USING PHP
This article
assumes that you have a basic understanding of html and css, and you already
know how to run a php script. This is a really easy if you follow these steps:
- Create a html form in your index.php
- Create database
- Create the table
- Create a connection to your database
- Insert your data
- …aaand you’re done!
CREATE HTML FORM IN YOUR INDEX.PHP
Create a
file called index.php in your local host directory and create a simple form in
this page.
“ <form class="" action="index.php" method="post">
<label for="firstname">Firstname</label>
<input type="text" name="firstname" required placeholder="firstname"/><br><br>
<label for="lastname">Lastname</label>
<input type="text" name="lastname" required placeholder="lastname"/><br><br>
<label for="email">Phone Number</label>
<input type="text" name="number" required placeholder="enter phone number"><br><br>
<button type="submit" name="submit">Sign up</button> <br><br>
</form> </body>”
Activate
WAMP, LAMP or XAMMP server and enter “localhost” into your browser. You should
see something like the image below:
CREATE DATABASE
To create a
database, enter “localhost/phpmyadmin” into your browser
On the login
page, enter “root” as the username if you haven’t used phpMyAdmin before. Otherwise,
you can enter any other username that you may have created.
By default,
the password should be left empty but if you have changed your password before
enter the correct password.
On the left
side of the phpMyAdmin page is a list of all the databases present on your
server.
Click New
and enter a name for your database. Note that
I have named
mine “Learning_insert”, change the collation to “utf8_unicode_ci” and then
click “create”
CREATE THE TABLE
When the database is created you would be directed to a
create table page, this is where we would create an empty table that we would
fill up with data from our form.
Enter a name name a set the “number of colums” to 3.
The reason for this is we’d be passing three sets of data (firstname, lastname,
phonenumber) from our form to our db. Now click “go”.
Fill up the “Name”
and set the “type” to “varchar” and the “length” to “255” set the storage
engine to “innoDB” and the click save.
At this
point, you have successfully created a database and a table.
You can view
the content of your db by clicking the database name and the table. Ours is
currently empty.
CREATE A CONNECTION TO YOUR DATABASE
Return to
your index.php file and and add a php tag. All php scripts must be written in a
php tag.
“<?php ?>”
A simple connection to our database “learning_insert” can be created
using the php script below
“<head>
<?php
//setting connection
parameters
CONST DBHOST =
"localhost";
CONST DBUSER =
"root"; //or whichever
username you created
CONST PASSWORD = "";
//password is empty by default, enter yours if you have one
CONST DBNAME = "learning_insert";
//setting up connection
$conn =
mysqli_connect(DBHOST, DBUSER, PASSWORD, DBNAME);
//confirm connection
if(mysqli_connect_errno()){
//if connection fails
die('Failed to connect to
db'.mysqli_connect_error().'('.mysqli_connect_errno().')');
}else {
echo "connection successful";
}
?>
</head>”
If you’re getting any errors, remember
google is your friend. If your work is successful, you should see something
like this. Note that "connection successful" would always be echoed to the screen. This is a useful testing feature, however, you can turn it off by commenting out the echo success message.
INSERT DATA
The first step to inserting data into the
db is to check if the submit button has been pressed, if this condition is met
we set up the variables that would be inserted into the db. This can be
achieved by adding the following php code snippet to the php script in our
header.
“
if (isset($_POST['submit'])){
//if the submit button
is pressed create variables
$firstname =
$_POST['firstname'];
$lastname =
$_POST['lastname'];
$phonenumber =
$_POST['number'];
}”
Finally, the data would be inserted into
the db using the php code below
“
$sql = "INSERT INTO `user_info ` (firstname, lastname, phonenumber) VALUES ('{$firstname}', '{$lastname}', '{$phonenumber}')"; //ensure that this line of code is on the same line
if($insert = mysqli_query($conn, $sql))
{
echo “You
have inserted data succesfully”;
}else{
echo "data
not saved".mysqli_error($conn);
}”
In the end, your full code should look just like this.
“<!doctype html>
<head>
<?php
//setting connection
parameters
CONST DBHOST =
"localhost";
CONST DBUSER =
"root"; //or whichever
username you created
CONST PASSWORD = "";
//password is empty by default, enter yours if you have one
CONST DBNAME =
"learning_insert";
//setting up connection
$conn =
mysqli_connect(DBHOST, DBUSER, PASSWORD, DBNAME);
//confirm connection
if(mysqli_connect_errno()){
die('Failed to connect to
db'.mysqli_connect_error().'('.mysqli_connect_errno().')');
}else {
echo "connection successful";
}
if (isset($_POST['submit'])){
//if the submit button
is pressed create variables
$firstname =
$_POST['firstname'];
$lastname =
$_POST['lastname'];
$phonenumber =
$_POST['number'];
$sql = "INSERT INTO `user_info ` (firstname, lastname, phonenumber) VALUES ('{$firstname}', '{$lastname}', '{$phonenumber}')";
if($insert
= mysqli_query($conn, $sql)) {
echo "you have
inserted data successfully";
$echo
= "data not saved".mysqli_error($conn);
}
}
?>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is the sign
up page</h1>
<br><br>
<form class=""
action="index.php" method="post">
<label
for="firstname">Firstname</label>
<input
type="text" name="firstname" required
placeholder="firstname"/><br><br>
<label
for="lastname">Lastname</label>
<input type="text"
name="lastname" required placeholder="lastname"/><br><br>
<label
for="email">Phone Number</label>
<input
type="text" name="number" required placeholder="enter
phone number"><br><br>
<button
type="submit" name="submit">Sign up</button>
<br><br>
</body>”
….AAAND YOU’RE DONE
At this stage our database is connected to
index.php. We can now test if everything is working fine.
On clicking the sign up button, you’ll see a success message
Now, let’s check our database and confirm
that the information has been stored successfully.
