creating a link between db output and editing

[dmavdm]

I'm a newbie so I may just be approaching this all wrong.

I have a db from which I retrieve a table of results and present this on via an html form generated with php. My first column for each row has an image that the user can click on to bring up a new pop up form in which they can edit that row of data and then submit to post the changes to the db.

How do I assign a key from database (for that record) which will allow me to retrieve the appropriate record for editing in my pop up form? In otherwords, when the user click on the row they want to edit, I need to know which record that corresponds to so I can show them only that record in the edit form.

Thanks.

[DJMaze]

Your db table records need a key/id field for easy access.

MySQL: AUTO_INCREMENT
PostgreSQL: SERIAL or see below
Relational SQL: 'before insert' trigger that calls the gen_id() procedure with the appropiate generator.

[dmavdm]

Thanks DJ, I've got that part taken care of. My question is really more about how to code my page to that when the user clicks on a row in my form, I know which record (i.e. the key_id) they selected. I think I somehow need to embed the key_id in the object they click on.

Maybe a little more detail will help... I have a query that returns a set of records. Then i'm looping through the returned array and generating the html form for each record, including columns for the fields in my database plus the "click here to edit" icon that i'm putting at in the first column of the form.

So if i return 10 records from query (i.e. 10 rows of data in my html table/form), how do i know which row the user clicks on so i can return the appropriate record in a new form for editing? This is probably very basic, but I'm not seeing it.

Thanks

[teknomage1]

I imagine the popup function is some sort of javascript function, so when you're generating the images/onclick code, just put the database row id in as an additional parameter of the javascript function. Then you can do an SQL 'UPDATE something = newthing IN table WHERE ID = id'