check box comparison 1

[nonprogrammer]

Hello,

I am trying to build an asp page that has different items with check boxes. Up to this point everything seems to be working. Where I am having problems is with the logic.
I want to be able to compare item a to item b both items have that same data fields hight, with, weight. Can anybody point me in the right direcction?

 

[Cirrus9]

What field values are you trying to compare or are you trying to do a side by side comparison or......?

 

[nonprogrammer]

side by side comparison

 

[Sheco]

Please explain a bit more... I don't really understand the question.

Do you have data like this:[tt]
Name Height Width
---- ------ -----
A 10 12
B 5 8
C 10 20
D 12 12
E 10 12
[/tt]

 

[nonprogrammer]

kind of Sheco.

Item Height Width Item Height Width Item Height Width
---- ---- --- --- ---- --- --- --- ---
A 10 12 B 4 9 C 12 10

 

[theniteowl]

Are you saying you want to compare the Height and Width of the checkbox fields? I would think not but that is what it sounds like.
I suspect you have height and width information about the product associated with each checkbox and want to compare the product information for each checked item?

If that is the case then we need to see how you are storing those values in your code to know how to access the values for comparison.


It's hard to think outside the box when I'm trapped in a cubicle.
In an increasingly self-focused society it is important to recognize the unselfish actions of others so they will feel encouraged to continue such actions. Please give acknowledgement to those who aid you whether it is waving to the person who let you out in traffic, tha

 

[Tarwn]

If we are correct in surmising that your data is stored in a database and the rows you are pulling out [in a recordset] each have the information for a single item, than you could use a simple recordset loop to output the information for each item in a series of table cells. The tricky part would be to determine ahead of time how many column headers you would need. This could be achieved by using the RecordCount property of the recordset object (provided you have set it up to provide this info).

Something like:

'assume we have a recordset named MyRS
Dim colCtr
Response.Write "<table>"

Response.Write "<tr>"
For colCtr = 0 to MyRS.RecordCount-1
   Response.Write "<th>Name</th><th>Width</th><th>Height</th>"
Next
Response.Write "</tr>"

Response.Write "<tr>"
If Not MyRS.EOF Then MyRS.MoveFirst
Do Until MyRS.EOF
   Response.Write "<td>" & MyRS("ItemName") & "</td>"
   Response.Write "<td>" & MyRS("ItemWidth") & "</td>"
   Response.Write "<td>" & MyRS("ItemHeight") & "</td>"
   MyRS.MoveNext
Loop
Response.Write "</tr>"
Response.Write "</table>"

Another option would be to use the GetString() method of the recordset object to convert each row into a string. with "</td><td>" delimiters (and then prepending a <td> and appending a </td>).

Yet another option would be to convert this data to an array, that way we wouldn't need the RecordCount ability:

'assuming you did something like: SELECT ItemName, ItemWidth, ItemHeight FROM MyTable...etc
Dim MyArr, ctr
MyArr = MyRS.GetRows()

Response.Write "<table>"

Response.Write "<tr>"
For ctr = 0 to UBound(MyArr,2)
   Response.Write "<th>Name</th><th>Width</th><th>Height</th>"
Next
Response.Write "</tr>"

Response.Write "<tr>"
For ctr = 0 to UBound(MyArr,2)
   Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(0,ctr) & "</td>"
   Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(1,ctr) & "</td>"
   Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(2,ctr) & "</td>"
Next
Response.Write "</tr>"
Response.Write "</table>"

Now personally I would prefer a layout where the properties were in the first column and each item to be compared would have it's own column, something like:

Item        A    B    C
Width      10   15   20
Height      1    2    3

This could be achieved the easiest by again using the GetRows() method:

'assuming you did something like: SELECT ItemName, ItemWidth, ItemHeight FROM MyTable...etc
Dim MyArr, colCtr, rowCtr
arrHdr = Array("Name","Width","Height")
MyArr = MyRS.GetRows()

Response.Write "<table>"
For rowCtr = 0 to 2
   Response.Write "<tr><th>" & arrHdr(rowCtr) & "</th>"
   For colCtr = 0 to UBound(MyArr,2)
      Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(colCtr,rowCtr) & "</td>"
   Next
   Response.Write "</tr>"
Next
Response.Write "</table>"

In any case, these examples are somewhat generic, let us know if they don't fit your needs and we should be able to help yu fashion something more fitting.

-T

 

[nonprogrammer]

woww those examples are great Tarwn, Thanks

theniteowl, what I meant is that I have

Item A (X)
Item B (X)
Item C ()
Item D ()
Item E ()

SUBMIT

When you click on the submit button it takes you to the comparison page

that is where it would show

Item A Item B
Height 10 21

Width 12 36

 

[nonprogrammer]

Tarwn, I tried this:

<%
'Dimension variables
Dim adoCon 			'Holds the Database Connection Object
Dim MyRS			'Holds the recordset for the record to be updated
Dim strSQL			'Holds the SQL query for the database


'Read in the record number to be updated


'Create an ADO connection odject
Set adoCon = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

'Set an active connection to the Connection object using a DSN-less connection
adoCon.Open "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=" & Server.MapPath("db/Partsearch.mdb")

'Set an active connection to the Connection object using DSN connection
'adoCon.Open "DSN=guestbook"

'Create an ADO recordset object
Set MyRS = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

'Initialise the strSQL variable with an SQL statement to query the database
strSQL = "SELECT PartNumber, Height, Hub FROM Parts "

'Open the recordset with the SQL query 
MyRS.Open strSQL, adoCon



'assuming you did something like: SELECT ItemName, ItemWidth, ItemHeight FROM MyTable...etc
Dim MyArr, colCtr, rowCtr
arrHdr = Array("PartNumber","Height","Hub")
MyArr = MyRS.GetRows()

Response.Write "<table>"
For rowCtr = 0 to 2
   Response.Write "<tr><th>" & arrHdr(rowCtr) & "</th>"
   For colCtr = 0 to UBound(MyArr,2)
      Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(colCtr,rowCtr) & "</td>"
   Next
   Response.Write "</tr>"
Next
Response.Write "</table>"




%>

and it gives me

Error Type:
Microsoft VBScript runtime (0x800A0009)
Subscript out of range: '3'
/search/s.asp, line 41


any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[bslintx]

looks like the rows are not dynamic but static w/ the 0 to 2...and once more than 2 rows happens it bonks out...

here is a working example that looks like you could easily fit into your code..

http://www.asp101.com/samples/viewasp.asp?file=db_getrows.asp

 

[theniteowl]

nonprogrammer, you are trying to compare height and width that is clear but height and width of what?

My assumption is that the database contains a list of items each with descriptive values for height and weight so when you do a comparison you want to compare the height and weight of one product with that of another.
Tarwn's sample code is based upon this premis.

The problem is that when you first posed your question you only said you want to compare checkbox field items height and weight. The first thing that comes to mind is that you want to know the height and weight (or width as you said that in another post) which could be refering to the HTML checkbox elements since there was no mention of a database or that the values to compare were related in any way to something outside of your HTML code. So nobody could tell exactly what it was you were trying to do because there was not enough detail to even understand the question. Even after I posted the question asking for clarification as to whether you were looking to compare HTML information or information about products your answer was just to say you want to compare the height and weight of A and B.
This is where you get UNDEFINED errors in programming because at this point A and B are undefined. We do not know what they refer to, what all of their properties are, how the properties are retrieved, stored, etc.

We want to help but you have to tell us precisely what you are working with and what you want to do with it.

Many years ago I worked in an auto-parts store. People would come in and say "I need an alternator for my car, it's blue." The color of the car might be important to the owner but in order to help him we could care less about the color, we need to know make, model, year, engine size, whether it has air conditioning, etc.

I think Tarwn is on the right track showing you what needs to be done but you could have gotten there 5 days ago if you had clearly stated what is was you needed to do.

I do not mean to sound like I am ranting on about this I just wanted to make clear why everyone was having trouble understanding what you were asking so that next time you will be better able to help us help you.


It's hard to think outside the box when I'm trapped in a cubicle.
In an increasingly self-focused society it is important to recognize the unselfish actions of others so they will feel encouraged to continue such actions. Please give acknowledgement to those who aid you whether it is waving to the person who let you out in traffic, tha

 

[nonprogrammer]

theniteowl,
I appreciate your comments. Tarwn understood what I was trying to do. Would it not be more productive to offer an answer to the right path? rather than just criticize how badly I express my question?

 

[theniteowl]

Productive? I WAS being productive. I specifically asked you the questions needed to determine what it was you were trying to do so that I could try to assist you. But you apprently did not understand the question because you did not give back a meaningful response.

It seems now that Tarwn has given you the approach you need even if you have not yet gotten it to work. I think that Tarwn having read all the previous posts and questions asking you to clarify what it is you wanted was able to then deduce what you must be asking for more by application of reasoning than by your own responses.

As I said, I was not ranting about your lack of ability to effectively communicate your needs, I was trying to help you to understand why it took so long for anyone to figure out what you were asking so that you would be able to ask better questions in the future. It was for your benefit not my own. If you want to take it as criticism then try and view it as constructive criticism so that you learn from it. There are plenty of people who would just come in and jump on you about not knowing what you are asking, not posting code so that we could see what you are trying to do or for not seeing that even after three different people asked you essentially the same questions that you never did clarify what is was that you wanted.
I am not here to cut people down I am here to try and help but do not have a crystal ball that tells me everything necessary to be able to help you.

So next time you have a booger hanging out of your nose or are walking around with your fly open nobody should tell you about it for fear of being told they are criticizing.

Re-read all of these posts. Hopefully you will be able to see with a bit more clarity what I was trying to say and figure out how it can benefit you in the future. Cause if you cannot do that you will find the people in these forums will be less and less helpful. Many are so tired of poorly stated questions that they do not even bother to respond anymore because there are so many newbies that come in here not knowing what to ask or how to ask it and then disrespecting the people trying to help them.

<%
Set SoapBox = Nothing
%>



It's hard to think outside the box when I'm trapped in a cubicle.
In an increasingly self-focused society it is important to recognize the unselfish actions of others so they will feel encouraged to continue such actions. Please give acknowledgement to those who aid you whether it is waving to the person who let you out in traffic, tha

 

[nonprogrammer]

I do not think nor I was trying to disrespect anyone. I really appreciate the help!! I am still trying to figure out the error I am getting

 

[theniteowl]

Are you still having problems?

First try simplifying the code. Just open the connection and retrieve/display the recordset just to make sure the DB connectivity is working.

<%
'Dimension variables
Dim adoCon             'Holds the Database Connection Object
Dim MyRS            'Holds the recordset for the record to be updated
Dim strSQL            'Holds the SQL query for the database

Set adoCon = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
adoCon.Open "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=" & Server.MapPath("db/Partsearch.mdb")
Set MyRS = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

strSQL = "SELECT PartNumber, Height, Hub FROM Parts "
 
MyRS.Open strSQL, adoCon

Do while not (MyRs.eof)
  Response.Write MyRs(0) & " " & MyRs(1) & " " & MyRs(2) & vbCrLf
MyRs.MoveNext
loop

MyRs.Close
Set MyRs = Nothing
Set adoCon = Nothing
%>

If this errors, try outputting just one of the text fields rather than all of the fields and see what happens.
If it works, then you know you can start building in the rest of the code.

Is the comparison supposed to happen on the same page as the form or after the form is submitted?

Do you really want to pull all the data down and store it in an array or do you want to take the posted results from the form to do a lookup on the selected items to do the comparison?

Is the comparision just happening in code and returning a value or are you looking to display it out on the page in some way?

There is still a lot of unknowns about what you are trying to do and the approach to the problem varies greatly depending on what you want/expect to happen so it is hard to do much more than give suggestions.




It's hard to think outside the box when I'm trapped in a cubicle.
In an increasingly self-focused society it is important to recognize the unselfish actions of others so they will feel encouraged to continue such actions. Please give acknowledgement to those who aid you whether it is waving to the person who let you out in traffic, tha

 

[nonprogrammer]

theniteowl,

I thank you and appreciate the help.

Let me see if I can explaint it a bit better.

I have a search page. When you do a search it shows the Part Number, Height and Hub.
What I want is to put a check box for each Part Number that the search returns. (Up to this point everything is ok)
Then when the user checks two or more Part Numbers, and the user hits the submit button it goes to a different page where it shows side by side each Part Number

Item A Item B
Height 10 12

Hub 15 5

Does this make more sence?



your script worked but it brings in all the records

0130 47/64 3/8 0130-A 47/64 3/8 0135 29/32 37/64 0135-A 29/32 37/64 0135-B 29/32 37/64 0140 1-3/16 37/64 0140-A 1-3/16 37/64 0140-B 1-3/16 37/64 0140-C 1-3/16 37/64 0140-D 1-3/16 37/64 0145 1-21/64 5/8 0145-A 1-21/64 5/8 0145-B 1-21/64 5/8 0145-C 1-21/64 5/8 0145-D 1-21/64 5/8 0145-E 1-21/64 5/8 0145-F 1-21/64 5/8 0150 1-1/2 7/8 0150-A 1-1/2 7/8 0155 1-55/64 1-1/16 0155-A 1-55/64 1-1/16 0155-B 1-55/64 1-1/16 0155-C 1-55/64 1-1/16 0155-D 1-55/64 1-1/16 0155-E 1-55/64 1-1/16 0020 1 15/16 0020AU 1 15/16 0020-B 1

 

[theniteowl]

The script was just to test whether you had a good connection to the database and the records were returning correctly.

You need to read the checkbox values from your form to see which items you need to look up.
You could read all of the data down into an array like Tarwn's code was showing but if you have a lot of data that could be pretty slow.

How many checkboxes do you have? Will there always be the same checkboxes with the same names or do they vary in quantity/name?

If you have a fixed number of checkboxes you can check each one to see if it is checked and if it is call a function that will read the database to retrieve the values for that particular item and store it for output when all the other checks are done.

If the number of checkboxes is variable then you are going to want to use other methods to retrieve their values.

Basically you have to figure out which items to look up and then execute a query for each one in turn, save the information until all have been read and then setup a loop to generate your HTML.

Or if you change your output to look more like this:
Item Name Height Weight
item1 31" 12pd
item2 12" 3pd

then you can output each items info as you download it instead of having to save it for later. If it's stored in a grid where info from more than one item is on the same line then you have to have all of the information already downloaded before you can begin displaying it.





It's hard to think outside the box when I'm trapped in a cubicle.

 

[nonprogrammer]

and there lyes my problem!!
Once again I really appreciate the help and please by no means I mean to be disrespectful nor I want anybody to write the code for me. I just wanted a stir in the right direcction with my problem. But it seems to me that we are just going in circles, and not getting anywhere. Once again I really apreciate the help.

 

[theniteowl]

Not getting anywhere? You are most of the way to your goal but there are unanswered questions that will alter the approach and you have not answered them.

Read my post, answer the questions I posed and I can be more specific but it all depends on how your form works. I do not know if you always have 4 checkboxes, have a range from 1 to 4 checkboxes or have a page that might show a hundred or more and have no idea how those checkboxes are named so that the values can be retrieved. I am just guessing at what you have and want and throwing out ideas for the different scenarios.


It's hard to think outside the box when I'm trapped in a cubicle.

 

[Tarwn]

Response.Write "<table>"
For rowCtr = 0 to 2
   Response.Write "<tr><th>" & arrHdr(rowCtr) & "</th>"
   For colCtr = 0 to UBound(MyArr,2)
      Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(colCtr,rowCtr) & "</td>"
   Next
   Response.Write "</tr>"
Next
Response.Write "</table>"

My bad. By colCtr and rowCtr I was referencing the tables columns and rows, not the recordset's. It should be:

Response.Write "<table>"
For [COLOR=red]colCtr[/color] = 0 to 2
   Response.Write "<tr><th>" & arrHdr([COLOR=red]colCtr[/color]) & "</th>"
   For [COLOR=red]rowCtr[/color] = 0 to UBound(MyArr,2)
      Response.Write "<td>" & MyArr(colCtr,rowCtr) & "</td>"
   Next
   Response.Write "</tr>"
Next
Response.Write "</table>"

That makes the row and col variables refernce the row and col of the Array. Or you could swap the two variables in the MyArr() reference and the row and col would line up with the table output.

My code above actually has an error that somehow OnPnt wasn't here to point out. That makes two he's caught and 2he's missed in about 4 years


On the checkbox thing:
Depending on how your passing thevalues in the checkboxes you will want to limit your SQL statement to only pull back the records they have checked. If you name all of your checkboxes the same name then the checked ones are passed back to the server as a single list (the unchecked ones are not passed back). You can then use this list to generatethe WHERE clause for your SQL statement.

So if we assume the checkboxes have a value of their partnumber and a name of "chkSelected":

[COLOR=red]Option #1 - A loop[/option]
strSQL = "SELECT PartNumber, Height, Hub FROM Parts "

Dim partnum, boolWhere
boolWhere = False
For Each partnum in Request.Form("chkSelected")
   If Not boolWhere Then
      strSQL = strSQL " WHERE PartNumber = '" & partnum & "'"
   Else
      strSQL = strSQL " OR PartNumber = '" & partnum & "'"
   End If
Next

[COLOR=red]Option #2 - String Replacement[/color]
'since the list is in the format 'option, option, option' we can use some string replacement to add in some quotes (the delimiter is really comma-space, not just a comma)

Dim tStr
tStr = "'" & Replace(Request.Form("chkSelected"),", ","', '"  & "'"
strSQL = "SELECT PartNumber, Height, Hub FROM Parts WHERE PartNumber IN (" & tStr & ")"

In both those examples I assumed part number was a text field. If it isn't than you will have to remove all the single quotes and you wouldn'tneed to do anyhting special to the list of values before putting it in an IN statement in the SQL string.

-T