User generated related records via PHP API

[Daniel Shanahan]

I'm trying to allow users to create comments for individuals. One individual may have many comments (which are timestamped). I have a web page with two buttons (see attached). One allows the user to update notes. This is a text field in the individuals table and is working fine. The other button is meant to create a new comment record. I've not been able to get this to work.

I'm using Lance Halberg's excellent video tutorial by VTC; however, it seems that he does not cover adding related records in the tutorial. I found this site to be helpful - http://blog.expertzweb.com/programming/filemaker-api-tutorial-for-php - however, the author refers to a custom function which does not appear to be available.

The buttons go to another page and here is the code for that page:

<?php

	include("includes/header.html");

	include("FileMaker.php");

	include("includes/functions.php");

	$fm = db_connect();



		$recID = $_POST["recID"];

		$notes = $_POST["notes"];



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

	

		$notes = htmlspecialchars($notes);

		

		$edit = $fm->newEditCommand("web_individuals", $recID);

		$edit->setField("notes", $notes);

		

		$result = $edit->execute();

		

	} elseif(isset($_POST["add_comm"])) {

		

		$edit = $fm->newEditCommand("web_individuals", $recID);

		$rel_rec = $edit->newRelatedRecord("zz_Comm_Logs");

		$rel_rec->setField("zz_Comm_Logs::content", "Lorem Ipsum");

		

		$result = $rel_rec->commit();

		

	}	

		error_check($result);

		header("Location:form_view.php?recID=".$recID);

		exit;

?>

I've tested the if/elseif statements with var_dump(), so I know those are working properly. However, I am not able to add a related record. (Note, for testing purposes, I am hard coding the input data. Once working, I will replace with input tags).

In the FMP db itself I have a web layout (web_individuals) with a portal (zz_Comm_Logs). In the Rel. Graph I have made the portal accept new records.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Joel Shapiro]

Hi Daniel

Does your web account have access privileges to create records in the related table?

Another thing you could do is create the new related record directly -- on a layout based on that table -- instead of as a newRelatedRecord:

} elseif(isset($_POST["add_comm"])) {

        

   $newComm =& $fm->newAddCommand('CommLayout');

   $newComm->setField('kf_ParentID', $recID); 

   $newComm->setField('content', 'Lorem Ipsum');

   $result = $newComm->execute();

        

} 

/* Note: If your current $recID is not the

primary key field in the parent record,

then you'll need to capture that and

use that here instead*/

HTH,

-Joel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joel Shapiro

FileMaker Pro

database & web design

http://www.jsfmp.com

415-269-5055

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Joel Shapiro]

By the way, that tutorial you found online should also be inside your FileMaker Server directory:

FileMaker Server/Examples/PHP/Tutorial/English/

-Joel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joel Shapiro

FileMaker Pro

database & web design

http://www.jsfmp.com

415-269-5055

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Daniel Shanahan]

Thanks, Joel. You ask a great question regarding permissions. I do have it set up with full-permissions during development. I ended up going with a script to add the related record. The php looks like this:

	} elseif(isset($_POST["add_comm"])) {

		

		$script = $fm->newPerformScriptCommand("zz_Comm_Logs", "add_webCommLog", $recID);

		$script->execute();

		

	}

		

		error_check($result);



		header("Location:form_view.php?recID=".$recID);

		exit;

The script is attached.

Again, I would add input markup for the user to enter content. I haven't done this part yet, but I presume that I can pass that as the third parameter with the record ID with a regEx "/n" and then add a new variable in the script that grabs the second value (maybe using the RightValues() function).

Although this method works well, I am still curious what I am doing wrong with the newRelatedRecord method.

script.pdf

[Daniel Shanahan]

Joel, thanks for the path to the examples. I didn't know I had them on my machine!