Populating a form with data from a DB

[Anonymous Monk]

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*:", $q->popup_menu(-name=>"inves
+t_salutation", -values=>["Dr.", "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Ms."])."   
+Degree:   ".$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();
}

[joecamel]

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'} )]) ]);
}

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.

[sandfly]

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.)

[cLive ;-)]

Please read this.

cLive ;-)

[Anonymous Monk]

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