Populating a form with data from a DB

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello and thanks for taking a look at this!

I am a new perl programmer using CGI.pm to create my application.

I have a subroutine defaultNewInvest() that creates a form that users can input some data. (The form has been truncated.) I would like to be able to search the database and retrieve the information INTO THE SAME FORM so that changes can be made.

I have no trouble creating the form, inserting the data into an Oracle database, nor retrieving the names into a list. If I click on the name, I would like to be taken back to the original form with the information filled in.

How do I query the database and pass all the information to defaultNewInvest() so that the information that is currently in the database can be viewed and/or edited???

I have searched the web and can not find any examples of this. I have seen HTML::Template but did not know if that was the best was to proceed. If anything is not clear, please ask. I am desperate for a solution.

Thanks in advance. I am including the code for creating my form. Maybe that will help in figuring out what I am not understanding.

PS. I have not included all hte subroutines. I merely included the if-elsif-else structure so that one can see the flow. Thanks again.

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

use strict;
use DBI;
use CGI;

use vars qw($CGI $DBH $dbsource $schema $user $psswd $DEBUG $cookie);
($dbsource, $schema, $user, $psswd) = ($ENV{DB_SOURCE}, $ENV{SCHEMA}, 
+$ENV{USER}, $ENV{PSSWD});

$CGI = new CGI;
$DBH=DBI->connect($dbsource,$user,$psswd,{RaiseError =>1, AutoCommit =
+>0}) || die "Database connection not made: $DBI::errstr";

if ( $CGI->param("saveNewInvestBtn") ) {
    insertNewInvestigator($CGI, $DBH);
} 
elsif ( $CGI->param("peopleSearchBtn") ) {
    peopleSearchResults($CGI, $DBH);
} 
elsif ($CGI->param("keywords") eq "newInvest" ) {
    defaultNewInvestigator($CGI);
}
else {
    mainPage($CGI);
}

sub defaultNewInvest {
    my $q = shift;
    print $q->header();
    print $q->start_html(-title=>'Primary Investigator Information');
    print $q->h1("Primary Investigator Information");
    print $q->start_form(-action=>"investigator.pl", -method=>"post", 
+-name=>"form1", -onSubmit=>"return checkInvestForm();");
    print$q->h3("Address Information");
    print $q->table( {-border=>0},
             $q->Tr([
                 $q->td( ["Salutation*:", $q->popup_menu(-name=>"inves
+t_salutation", -values=>["Dr.", "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Ms."])."&nbsp;&nbsp; 
+Degree:&nbsp;&nbsp; ".$q->textfield(-name=>"invest_degree")]),
                 $q->td( ["First Name*:", $q->textfield(-name=>"invest
+_fname", -size=>40)] ),
                 $q->td( ["Mid. Name:", $q->textfield(-name=>"invest_m
+name", -size=>40)]),
                 $q->td( ["Last Name*:", $q->textfield(-name=>"invest_
+lname", -size=>40)] ),
                 $q->td( ["Title:", $q->textfield(-name=>"invest_title
+", -size=>40)]) ])
             );
    print $q->submit( -name=>"saveNewInvestBtn", -value=>"Save", class
+=>"buttonstyle" );
    print $q->end_form();
    print $q->end_html();
}
[download]

Comment on Populating a form with data from a DB Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Populating a form with data from a DB by sandfly (Beadle) on Sep 08, 2004 at 22:38 UTC
If you want to use the CGI for this, you have two options: 1. Set the value of the parameter using `$q->param("invest_fname", "Joe");` or 2. Use -default and -override when you print the control: `$q->textfield( -name=>"invest_lname", -default=>"Soap", -override=>1 );` Sometimes I show pages containing several forms, so I prefer the latter approach. (No code was tested in the writing of this answer.)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Populating a form with data from a DB by joecamel (Hermit) on Sep 08, 2004 at 22:18 UTC
I don't use CGI.pm to generate HTML, but I think you can add `-value` to your args. Something like this: `sub getInvest { my $investID = shift \|\| return {}; # grab row from database with fethrow_hashref() return \%invest; } sub defaultNewInvest { my $q = shift; my $fillIn = getInvest($q->param('investID')); # ... $q->td( ["Title:", $q->textfield(-name=>"invest_title", -size=>40, +-value=>$fillIn->{'invest_title'} )]) ]); }` [download] Using a templating solution like HTML::Template is a good way to handle this type of thing, because you can usually just pass the hash you get from your database call right into the template's param() method. joecamel	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Populating a form with data from a DB by cLive ;-) (Prior) on Sep 09, 2004 at 09:28 UTC
Please read this. cLive ;-)	[reply]
Re: Populating a form with data from a DB by Anonymous Monk on Sep 09, 2004 at 18:49 UTC
Thanks for your suggetions. I am trying out the first two suggestions. They are fairly similar, I believe. I went to the link suggested in the 3rd post and did not find what I was looking for. I will post later on if I have any success. Debbie	[reply]