Enter multiple rows in an MySQL table by pressing the Submit button in a PHP Form

Question

So to preface - I'm trying to implement a "Mark Attendance" feature on my website where I'm printing all the registered students in a table (that is wrapped in ) - each student has a "Present / Absent" radio button and once the admin has selected his preferred option, he presses "Submit" and the form should mark all students Present OR Absent i.e insert multiple rows (equal to the number of total students in the table) with their Attendance Status i.e Absent or Present.

Following is the HTML part of the code (mixed with some PHP):

<form action="adminmarkattendance.php" method="post">
                                <div class="row">
                                    <div class="col">
                                        <div class="card bg-default shadow">
                                            <div class="card-header bg-transparent border-0">

                                                <div class="form-inline">
                                                    <div class="col-lg-6">
                                                        <h3 class="text-white mb-0">Registered Students</h3>
                                                    </div>
                                                    <div class="col-lg-6">
                                                        <div class="form-group">
                                                            <input style="width: 100%;" class="form-control" name="attendancedate" type="date" required>

                                                        </div>
                                                    </div>
                                                </div>
                                            </div>
                                            <div class="table-responsive" style="overflow-y: scroll; height: 600px;">
                                                <table class="table align-items-center table-dark table-flush">
                                                    <thead class="thead-dark">
                                                        <tr>

                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="name">Avatar</th>
                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="name">Student Name</th>
                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="status">Phone Number</th>
                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="status">Age</th>
                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="status">Gender</th>
                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="status">Address</th>
                                                            <th scope="col" class="sort" data-sort="status">Action</th>
                                                        </tr>
                                                    </thead>
                                                    <tbody class="list">
                                                        <?php
                                                        foreach ($getRows as $row) {
                                                            $i = 0; ?>
                                                            <tr>
                                                                <td>
                                                                    <img src="<?php echo '../profileImages/' . $row['profile_image'] ?>" width="45" height="45" alt="">
                                                                    <input type="hidden" name="id" value="<?php echo $row['student_id']; ?>">
                                                                </td>
                                                                <th scope="row">
                                                                    <div class="media align-items-center">

                                                                        <div class="media-body">
                                                                            <span class="name mb-0 text-sm"><?php echo $row['fname'] . ' ' . $row['lname']; ?></span>
                                                                        </div>
                                                                    </div>
                                                                </th>

                                                                <td>
                                                                    <span class="badge badge-dot mr-4">
                                                                        <span class="status"><?php echo $row['phonenumber']; ?></span>
                                                                    </span>
                                                                </td>
                                                                <td>
                                                                    <span class="badge badge-dot mr-4">
                                                                        <span class="status"><?php echo $row['age']; ?></span>
                                                                    </span>
                                                                </td>
                                                                <td>
                                                                    <span class="badge badge-dot mr-4">
                                                                        <span class="status"><?php echo $row['gender']; ?></span>
                                                                    </span>
                                                                </td>
                                                                <td>
                                                                    <span class="badge badge-dot mr-4">
                                                                        <span class="status"><?php echo $row['address']; ?></span>
                                                                    </span>
                                                                </td>
                                                                <td>
                                                                    <div class="btn-group btn-group-toggle" data-toggle="buttons">
                                                                        <label class="btn btn-secondary active">
                                                                            <input type="radio" name="options" value="present" id="option1" autocomplete="off" checked> Present
                                                                        </label>
                                                                        <label class="btn btn-secondary">
                                                                            <input type="radio" name="options" value="absent" id="option2" autocomplete="off"> Absent
                                                                        </label>
                                                                    </div>
                                                                </td>

                                                            </tr>
                                                        <?php } ?>
                                                    </tbody>
                                                </table>

                                            </div>
                                        </div>
                                    </div>
                                </div>
                                <div class="text-center">
                                    <button type="submit" name="submit" style="width: 100%;" class="btn btn-warning">Mark Attendance</button>
                                </div>
                            </form>

PHP:

   if (isset($_POST["submit"])) {

    $student_id = $_POST["id"];
    $date = $_POST['attendancedate'];
    $date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($date));
    $status = $_POST['options'];

    $queryInsert = $conn->prepare("INSERT
       into attendance
       (
       student_id,
       date,
       status
       )
       values 
       (
       $student_id,
       '$date',
       '$status'
       )
  ");
  $queryInsert->execute();
  

    echo "<script> location.replace('adminmarkattendance.php'); </script>";
}

As you can probably see in the code - I'm only trying to insert the student's ID, date & his present/absent status.

Now, when I press submit, the information of only 1 student is inserted into the Attendance table. Usually, the last student. Which is not what I want - I want X number of rows inserted when I press submit, where X is equal to the number of students in the table.

How do I achieve this? Thank you for reading.

Does this answer your question? Multiple inputs with same name through POST in php — C3roe
– C3roe, Commented Feb 16, 2022 at 10:55

Your Common Sense · Accepted Answer · 2025-03-29 03:40:54Z

1

What you need is to submit whole data and then loop through it like this

<input type="hidden" name="id[]" value="<?php echo $row['student_id']; ?>">
<input type="radio" name="options[]" value="absent" id="option2" autocomplete="off"> Absent</label>

Then

if (isset($_POST["submit"])) 
{
    $sql = "INSERT into attendance(student_id,date,status) values (?,?,?)";
    $queryInsert = $conn->prepare($sql);

    foreach ($_POST["id"] as $i => $student_id)
    {
        $date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($_POST['attendancedate']));
        $status = $_POST['options'][$i]];
        $queryInsert->execute([$student_id, $date, $status]);
    }
}

edited Mar 29 at 3:40

Your Common Sense

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answered Feb 16, 2022 at 11:09

Aqib Javed

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1 Comment

VenoM Over a year ago

This works just fine, thank you. Though I do have an error in the end. It says "Undefined Offset: 1" and in the database, the attendance status for the last student is always empty. So if I have 2 students in total right now, options[1] is invalid according to this code. Any idea why?

Your Common Sense · Accepted Answer · 2025-03-29 03:47:33Z

0

I feel like I do have something to improve on Adib Javed's answer (the back-end part).

Preferably don't loop db requests, and try to make a single request. So you can loop to create the request, and when the loop ends, send that single request:

if (isset($_POST["submit"])) 
{
    $sql = "INSERT into attendance(student_id,date,status) values ";
    $params = [];
    foreach ($_POST["id"] as $i => $student_id)
    {
        $sql .= "(?,?,?),";
        $params[] = $student_id;
        $params[] = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($_POST['attendancedate']));
        $params[] = $_POST['options'][$i]];
    }
    $sql = rtrim($sql, ",");
    $conn->prepare($sql)->execute($params);
}

edited Mar 29 at 3:47

Your Common Sense

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answered Feb 16, 2022 at 11:36

tola

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