Hi,

I hope someone can help me with this. I am new to Perl and I am trying to use form values "checkboxes", to query an access database.

I am having trouble getting the sql statement to use the form values in the query. It passes the values from the form to the perl script but then throws up a blank screen, so I have no error messages to work with either.

This is the script I am "trying" to use to parse the form values and query the database (without much success I might add!

20021119 Edit by Corion : Removed code tags from text

#!c:/perl/bin/perl.exe 

use strict; 
use DBI; 
use CGI; 

#open connection to Access database 
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:directory", 
{ 'AutoCommit' =>1, 'RaiseError' =>1}) || 

die "Error connecting: '$DBI::errstr'"; 

# setup CGI handle 
my $cgi = new CGI; 

# start HTML 

print $cgi->header . $cgi->start_html('Drive'); 

# handle any queries that have been sent our way 
my $initiative = validate($cgi->param('Initiative')); 
my $resorientation = validate($cgi->param('ResOrientation')); 
my $creativity = validate($cgi->param('Creativity')); 
my $changeorientation = 
validate($cgi->param('ChangeOrientation')); 
my $decisionmaking = validate($cgi->param('DecisionMaking')); 
my $level = validate($cgi->param('SelectLevel')); 
my $manage = validate($cgi->param('ManagesPeople')); 


if ($cgi->param('Query')) { 
my $sql = "select a.ResType, a.ResLevel, a.ResManage 
a.Details, a.Length, a.Source, a.Cost, a.FurtherDetails 
from Resources a 
INNER JOIN ResourceSettings b ON a.ResID = b.ResID"; 
$sql .= "where DriveInitiative = $initiative" 
if ($initiative = 'on'); 
$sql .= "where DriveResOrient = $resorientation" 
if ($resorientation = 'on'); 
$sql .= "where DriveCreativity = $creativity" 
if ($creativity = 'on'); 
$sql .= "where DriveChangeOrient = $changeorientation" 
if ($changeorientation = 'on'); 
$sql .= "where DriveDecisionMake = $decisionmaking" 
if ($decisionmaking = 'on'); 
$sql .= "where ResLevel like $level"; 
$sql .= "where ResManage like $manage"; 
$sql .= "order by a.ResType, a.ResLevel, a.ResManage, 
a.Details, a.Length, a.Source, a.Cost, a.FurtherDetails"; 

my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql); 
$sth->execute || 
die "Could not execute SQL statement ... maybe invalid?"; 

die "Error connecting: '$DBI::errstr'"; 

my $rows = $dbh->selectall_arrayref($sql) || die $dbh->errstr; 
if (@$rows) { 
print "<table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3><tr>" . 
"<th>Type</th><th>Level</th><th>Manage</th><th>Details</th><th>Length<
+/th><th>Source</th><th>Cost</th><th>Further 
Details</th></tr>"; 
foreach my $row (@$rows) { 
print "<tr><td>" . join ("</td><td>", @$row) . 
"</td></tr>\n"; 
} 
print "</table>\n"; 
} 
else { 
print "<p><i>No matches found</i></p>\n"; 
} 
} 


# disconnect from database 
$dbh->disconnect(); 
exit(0); 

# validate user input 
sub validate { 
my $string = shift; 
# get rid of all non-letter, non-numerical characters and 
percents 
$string =~ s/[^A-Za-z0-9%]//g; 
return $string; 
}

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In reply to querying a database using checkbox values by Rachel

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