How can I set popup_menu parameters and send them to another page?

[jaffinito34]

I understand to send data to another page, you use:

print start_form(
    -action=>'results.cgi');
    various form stuff....
print end_form;

I would like to be able to take the selected options from popup_menu's as well as a textbox to return information from a database. So I'm going from a search page to a results page. The search page is displaying information from the database, then whatever the user picks as their selection in the popup_menu gets passed to the results page to query the database.

---

use DBI;
use CGI::Cookie;
use CGI qw /:standard/;
use warnings;

#checking if cookie is set, if not redirecting to login
my %cookies = CGI::Cookie->fetch;
if (! defined $cookies{'authorized'})
{
        print redirect('login.cgi')
}

#connecting to DB
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:SQLite:dbname=/path/to/database.db","","")
+;

# getting artist info
my $sth = $dbh->prepare('select artistid, name from artist');
$sth->execute;

# getting genre info
my $sth2 = $dbh->prepare('select genreid, name from genre');
$sth2->execute;


#printing header
print header,
start_html('Database Search'),
h2('Select items from the dropdown menus to help filter your results.'
+),
br,br,
end_html;

print start_form(-action=>'results.cgi');
end_form;     ### THIS CAUSES REDIRECT TO RESULTS WHEN USER HITS SUBMI
+T

############################POPUPS######################
#displaying artist dropdown
my @artistValues;
my %artistLabels;

#this push adds to beginning of values, then it gets set to 'Make a se
+lection' as the default
 for the dropdown
push (@artistValues, -1); 
print h4('Please select an artist');
$artistLabels{-1} = "Make a selection"; 
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array)
{
        #2 columns in DB, first is ID second is NAME
        my $artistId = $row[0];
        my $artistName = $row[1];
        push(@artistValues,$artistId);   
        $artistLabels{$artistId} = $artistName;    
}
print popup_menu(-name=>'artist',
                -values=>\@artistValues,
                -labels=>\%artistLabels);
$userArtist = param('artist');


#displaying genre dropdown
my @genreValues;
my %genreLabels;
push (@genreValues, 'Make a selection');   
print br,br;
print h4('Please select a genre');
$genreLabels{-1} = "Make a selection";   
while (my @row = $sth2->fetchrow_array)
{
        my $genreId = $row[0];
        my $genreName = $row[1];
        push (@genreValues, $genreName);  
        $genreLabels{$genreId} = $genreId;  
}

print popup_menu(-name=>'genre',
                -values=>\@genreValues,
                -lables=>\%genreLabels);
$userGenre = param('genre');
print br,br;
######################################################################
+##

#displaying trackname textbox
print "Track name: ",textfield('trackname'),br,br
submit('SEARCH'),
$trackName = param('trackname');

while(my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array){
        foreach $item (@row){
                print "$item    ";
        }print br;
}

print br,br,br,br,a({href=>'http://www.blablabla.com/logout.cgi'},'Log
+out');

When I go to print the parameters ($userArtist, $userGenre, $trackName), only trackname gets printed and I don't see anything for artist or genre. I am not able to find anything online about this, or maybe I'm just unsure how it works, any help is appreciated.

[poj]

You could use a test results.cgi page to see the name and value of all the parameter sent like this ;

use strict;
use CGI qw /:standard/;
print header,start_html('results');
print h3("Parameters");
for (param){
  print "$_ = ".param($_)."<br/>";
}
print end_html;

poj

[thewebsi]

I'm assuming that this script is the "search" page and the "results" page is where you are printing the parameter values (not shown here).

print start_form(-action=>'results.cgi');
end_form; ### THIS CAUSES REDIRECT TO RESULTS WHEN USER HITS SUBMIT

It looks like this might be the issue: You want to print end_form() (not just run it), and you want to do this at the end of your script (ie, at the end of the form), not here.

[Anonymous Monk]

#printing header
print header,
start_html('Database Search'),
h2('Select items from the dropdown menus to help filter your results.'
+),
br,br,
end_html;

Why did you output the end_html here? That should be the last item printed, not one of the first items prior to your form.