I want to somehow use PHP to load the same page over and over but with different content. For example, if a user clicks "next book", the same page will load, but they will be able to see the info for the next book stored in my file.
i was trying to use a hidden field - but it didn't seem to like it.

Any ideas??

If you set the action for $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] you can do that.

I believe putting __FILE__ in the action of a form will achieve the same thing (__FILE__ holds the name of the current file, complete path)
Or you can try using header("location: the_url_") to redirect to the same file.

1) If I put the file in the action of a form, wouldn't I need a "Submit" button to cause the action to take place? I just want them to be able to click a link to have the same effect.

2) Is "header()" some php function I don't know about? Where would I invoke it??

Sorry if these are dumb questions!!

1) How about using the page's url as the href part of your link?

2) header basically encapsulates all the stuff that gets sent to a browser from the server before the actual content. It includes headers, mime types (what type of document it is), cookies, redirects, etc... More info

Though in your case i think 1 would be the easiest choice.

Coolman,

1) is what I was trying to do - I agree with you, it seems like the easiest solution.

My question is this: will I be able to pass parameters to the new page just by using an href??

For example, I have a file where each line is a new book and contains information about that book to be displayed.
If a user is viewing a book, and wants to see the next one in the list, he simply clicks "next", and then I want to display the info for the next book (on the same page, overwriting the previous data).

So I'm thinking I will need to keep some sort of counter or something (I can worry about thos details), but will I be able to access that $counter variable from another document once it is loaded??

Hope my question is clear!!

Thanks so much.

Basically what you need to do is pass an extra variable through the url about the state of your application, so what page should be displayed next.

Say your php file is called "book.php". The first time you load it, you want to for example display the first book. That's the default behaviour. Nothing was passed to the file.

Now on that page you create a link, "Next", where you take the current book # and increment it by one and pass this number through the url to the same script. Something like this:
href="book.php?book_number=1"...

Now what you have to do is when your script loads, check for the variable "book_number", if it was not set, then this is the first time the user used the book, so you display the default page. But if it was set to something, use that number to determine which book to display and increment the number again for the link.

Something like that

You are my saviour. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your reply. I'll get back to you once I have it implemented.

Thanks again

Sweet, can't wait to see what you come up with

How do I check if a variable exists if it hasn't been initialized yet?

Also,
if I have <a href="next.php?booknum=1">

then won't "1" always get passed no matter what? How would I increment it and then pass the incremented value?? It would also have to decrement if a user clicked the "previous" link.

You're right, you need to find a way to retrieve the value that was passed to the script. There are a couple of ways of doing it.

The most versatile method is to use $_REQUEST['varname'] which will return the value of the variable. I've just started learning php myself, but i found $_REQUEST to be the best, since it doesn't matter in what form the variable was passed (wether it was through get, post or cookie).

Here's an example:

This has proven to be quite difficult. It turns out that passing ++$num works just fine, however, if I want to pass another parameter, such as $title, if I concatenate it like you have shown me, I lose data.

For example, if I do this:

echo "<a href=", $_SERVER['php_self'], "?num=", ++$num, "&title=", $title>Next</a>";

And lets say that $title references "The Hulk", then only "The" gets passed for some stupid reason I'm sure.

Any ideas why??