Problems using multiple joins for search

Question

I am new to dreamweaver and coding and I am battling to get my head around joining tables and using multiple joins to create a search result recordset.
I have a the following tables setup;
Venues table
venueID
name
category (text)
city
provinceID (numeric)
country
maxcapacity
Province table
provinceID
province (text)
Category Table
categoryID
category (text)
Max Conference Table
conferencefacilitiesID
venueID
maxcapacity
I am passing the search $_POST variables via a form and displaying it in a results page.
I have successfully done the search using only one table the problem results in using multiple joins. I cam not sure of the syntax to use but have successfully created the results page, using the outer join to link the province, category and maxcapacity to the venues table. Not all the venues have conferencing so I think need to use outer join for conferencing.
I can't seem to access the search and not sure if I can use the WHERE command to set varialbe 'category' = varCategory 
Below is my code which doesn't work;
SELECT wp_dbt_venues.venuesID, wp_dbt_venues.name, wp_dbt_venues.category, wp_dbt_venues.province, wp_dbt_venues.city, wp_dbt_province.provinceID, wp_dbt_province.province, wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.venueid, wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.maxcapacity
FROM ((wp_dbt_venues LEFT OUTER JOIN wp_dbt_province ON wp_dbt_venues.province = wp_dbt_province.provinceID)  LEFT OUTER JOIN wp_dbt_conferencefacilties ON wp_dbt_venues.venuesID = wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.venueid)
WHERE 'category'=varCategory
I would like to get on variable working and then expand onto the others like WHERE maxcapacity < varCapacity

Answer 1

Hi bregent
Thank you for all the help, below is the code. I have clened it up as best I could as dreamweaver seems to add recordset everytime I edit it. I then have to delete the old code. It also seems adds a totalRows variable and moves one of the runtime variables to the totalRows variable. Its all very confusing but its working.
Results Page
<?php require_once('Connections/tova.php'); ?>
<?php
if (!function_exists("GetSQLValueString")) {
function GetSQLValueString($theValue, $theType, $theDefinedValue = "", $theNotDefinedValue = "")
  if (PHP_VERSION < 6) {
    $theValue = get_magic_quotes_gpc() ? stripslashes($theValue) : $theValue;
   $theValue = function_exists("mysql_real_escape_string") ? mysql_real_escape_string($theValue) : mysql_escape_string($theValue);
  switch ($theType) {
    case "text":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;   
    case "long":
    case "int":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? intval($theValue) : "NULL";
      break;
    case "double":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? doubleval($theValue) : "NULL";
      break;
    case "date":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;
    case "defined":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? $theDefinedValue : $theNotDefinedValue;
      break;
  return $theValue;
if (isset($_POST['delegates'])) {
  $varDel_results = $_POST['delegates'];
$varProv_results = "-1";
if (isset($_POST['province'])) {
  $varProv_results = $_POST['province'];
$varCat_results = "-1";
if (isset($_POST['category'])) {
  $varCat_results = $_POST['category'];
mysql_select_db($database_tova, $tova);
$query_results = sprintf("SELECT wp_dbt_venues.venuesID, wp_dbt_venues.name, wp_dbt_venues.category, wp_dbt_venues.province, wp_dbt_venues.city, wp_dbt_province.provinceID, wp_dbt_province.province, wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.venueid, wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.maxcapacity FROM ((wp_dbt_venues LEFT OUTER JOIN wp_dbt_province ON wp_dbt_venues.province = wp_dbt_province.provinceID)  LEFT OUTER JOIN wp_dbt_conferencefacilties ON wp_dbt_venues.venuesID = wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.venueid) WHERE wp_dbt_venues.category = %s AND wp_dbt_venues.province = %s AND wp_dbt_conferencefacilties.maxcapacity < %s", GetSQLValueString($varCat_results, "text"),GetSQLValueString($varProv_results, "int"),GetSQLValueString($varDel_results, "int"));
$results = mysql_query($query_results, $tova) or die(mysql_error());
$row_results = mysql_fetch_assoc($results);
$totalRows_results = mysql_num_rows($results);
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Search Results</p>
<table width="200" border="1">
  <tr>
    <td> </td>
    <td>Name</td>
    <td>Category</td>
    <td>City</td>
    <td>Province</td>
    <td>Delegates</td>
  </tr>
  <?php do { ?>
    <tr>
      <td><?php echo $row_results['venuesID']; ?></td>
      <td><?php echo $row_results['name']; ?></td>
      <td><?php echo $row_results['category']; ?></td>
      <td><?php echo $row_results['city']; ?></td>
      <td><?php echo $row_results['province']; ?></td>
      <td><?php echo $row_results['maxcapacity']; ?></td>
    </tr>
    <?php } while ($row_results = mysql_fetch_assoc($results)); ?>
</table>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>
<?php mysql_free_result($results);
?>
Search Page
<?php require_once('Connections/tova.php'); ?>
<?php
if (!function_exists("GetSQLValueString")) {
function GetSQLValueString($theValue, $theType, $theDefinedValue = "", $theNotDefinedValue = "")
  if (PHP_VERSION < 6) {
    $theValue = get_magic_quotes_gpc() ? stripslashes($theValue) : $theValue;
  $theValue = function_exists("mysql_real_escape_string") ? mysql_real_escape_string($theValue) : mysql_escape_string($theValue);
  switch ($theType) {
    case "text":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;   
    case "long":
    case "int":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? intval($theValue) : "NULL";
      break;
    case "double":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? doubleval($theValue) : "NULL";
      break;
    case "date":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;
    case "defined":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? $theDefinedValue : $theNotDefinedValue;
      break;
  return $theValue;
mysql_select_db($database_tova, $tova);
$query_category = "SELECT category FROM wp_dbt_categories ORDER BY category ASC";
$category = mysql_query($query_category, $tova) or die(mysql_error());
$row_category = mysql_fetch_assoc($category);
$totalRows_category = mysql_num_rows($category);
mysql_select_db($database_tova, $tova);
$query_province = "SELECT * FROM wp_dbt_province ORDER BY province ASC";
$province = mysql_query($query_province, $tova) or die(mysql_error());
$row_province = mysql_fetch_assoc($province);
$totalRows_province = mysql_num_rows($province);
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Search</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><strong>Advanced Search</strong></p>
<form action="results.php" method="post" name="form1" target="_blank" id="form1">
  <p>
    <label>Category
      <select name="category" id="category">
        <?php
do { 
?>
        <option value="<?php echo $row_category['category']?>"<?php if (!(strcmp($row_category['category'], $row_category['category']))) {echo "selected=\"selected\"";} ?>><?php echo $row_category['category']?></option>
        <?php
} while ($row_category = mysql_fetch_assoc($category));
  $rows = mysql_num_rows($category);
  if($rows > 0) {
      mysql_data_seek($category, 0);
            $row_category = mysql_fetch_assoc($category);
?>
      </select>
    </label>
  </p>
  <p>
    <label>Province
      <select name="province" id="province">
        <?php
do { 
?>
        <option value="<?php echo $row_province['provinceID']?>"<?php if (!(strcmp($row_province['provinceID'], $row_province['provinceID']))) {echo "selected=\"selected\"";} ?>><?php echo $row_province['province']?></option>
        <?php
} while ($row_province = mysql_fetch_assoc($province));
  $rows = mysql_num_rows($province);
  if($rows > 0) {
      mysql_data_seek($province, 0);
            $row_province = mysql_fetch_assoc($province);
?>
      </select>
    </label>
  </p>
  <p>
    <label>Delegates
      <input name="delegates" type="text" id="delegates" value="" />
    </label>
  </p>
  <p>
    <label>
      <input type="checkbox" name="Facilities" value="golf" id="Facilities_0" />
      Golf</label>
    <br />
    <label>
      <input type="checkbox" name="Facilities" value="game" id="Facilities_1" />
      Game</label>
    <br />
  </p>
  <p>
    <label>Search
      <input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Submit" />
    </label>
  </p>
</form>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($category);
mysql_free_result($province);
?>