PHP and MySQL user filtering

I have a web application that shows a list of events taken from a mysql db and presented to a user.

The user can then filter the results according to several (8-10) 'types'

My question is, how should I approach this? Basically what I need to do is take the user input for the filter (in $_GET) and then find out which types he is looking to filter and according to that, change my sql query.

How do I do it in a way that is not very com开发者_高级运维plex? I thought of using many 'if' or 'case' statements, but i'm not sure if that's the best solution as its a lot of coding for a very simple thing..

Can anyone give me some advice? Thanks,

Example DB:

EVENT_ID    EVENT_NAME     EVENT_TYPE
1           test           regular
2           test2          vip
3           test4          testtype

...

Example $_GET:

$_GET['regular'] = 'on'

...

---

you should probably create an array of types using checkboxes

<input type="checkbox" name="types[]" value="regular" /> Regular

<input type="checkbox" name="types[]" value="vip" /> VIP

then you would have an array of types with $_REQUEST['types']...

echo implode(",",$_REQUEST['types]); // for example

Well it depends if you actually store event_types as string (you shouldnt).

If you change them to int you could simply do

$query = "select * from events";

if(isset($_REQUEST['types'])){
    $query .= "and event_types in (".implode(",",$_REQUEST['types']).")";
}

If you keep them as string in you db you could do the same thing but you'll have to had '' around the values...

of course you'll have to secure this

---

Is it supposed to allow multiply selections or only 1 filter selection. If 1 you could use the case function easy or you could use the onchange function of javascript.

---

Takes GET from a number of checkboxes and creates SQL query. You need to change column names and the $getOptions array. The key of a $getOptions element is the name of the type.

$getOptions = array(
    'regular'    => $_GET['regular'],
    'vip'        => $_GET['vip'],
    'testtype'   => $_GET['testtype']
);

$sql = "SELECT * FROM events";

$sqlOptions = array();

foreach($getOptions as $key => $value)
{
    if($value == 'on')
    {
        $sqlOptions[] = $key;
    }
}

if(!empty($sqlOptions))
{
    $sql .= " WHERE EVENT_TYPE IN ('" . implode("','", $sqlOptions) . "')";
}

// Execute $sql