Undefine Index: password

Question

Hello !
I have book "Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 with PHP - Training from the source" by Daivid Powers. It contains CD with the files I should use and work with.
I followed the instructions and I created pages about logining , inserting records, user listing etc..
The problem is when I try to update records!
I have a user_list.php which shows a list of users and next to every record there are two buttons (EDIT and DELETE).
When I press the "EDIT" button is supposed to take me in a page where all the data of the selected user will be filled in except the password..
It DOES that BUT it gives me a Notice: Undefined index: password in D:\EasyPHP\www\phpcs5\lesson06\workfiles\update_user.php on line 46
This is what I have in lines 42-47
42: if(isset($_POST['password']) && empty($_POST['password'])){
43:   
44:    $_POST['password'] = $row_getUser['password'];
45: } else {
46:     $_POST['password'] = sha1($_POST['password']);
47: }
Obviously I am totaly newbie in PHP so it is hard for me not just to solve it but even where to start looking..
A little googling told me that _POST['password'] does not exist ( it is not submitted or something) but I do not know what to do..
The book cd contains a directory called "completed" where is supposed that in there, are the files on their final look!
Unfortunately these files return  the same "Notice".
OS: Windows 7 pro
EasyPHP 5.3.5.0
Apache/2.2.17 (Win32)
PHP/5.3.5
MySQL: 5.1.54
Should I post the code of the files?
Thank you!

Answer 1

Ok then!
There are two files, the user_list.php and the update_user.php.
When you load user_list.php it shows a list of users and next to each user there are 2 links, the "edit" and "delete".
When you press the "EDIT" it gets you to the update_user.php and it loads in the input fields the "First Name" , "Family name" and "Username".
There is one correction for sure that should apply in update_user.php. In the recordset are currently selected the columns user_id, first_name, family_name and username. In the book's corrections page mentions that "password" column should be selected as well.
As said before the problem is that anytime I try to EDIT a user it returns me an error " Notice: Undefined index: password in D:\EasyPHP\www\phpcs5\lesson06\workfiles\update_user.php on line 46"
This is what I have in lines 42-47
42: if(isset($_POST['password']) && empty($_POST['password'])){
43:   
44:    $_POST['password'] = $row_getUser['password'];
45: } else {
46:     $_POST['password'] = sha1($_POST['password']);
47: }
The code of those files is taken from the Completed directory from the cd and are like this..
user_list.php
<?php require_once('Connections/cs5read.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;
$maxRows_getUsers = 10;
$pageNum_getUsers = 0;
if (isset($_GET['pageNum_getUsers'])) {
  $pageNum_getUsers = $_GET['pageNum_getUsers'];
$startRow_getUsers = $pageNum_getUsers * $maxRows_getUsers;
mysql_select_db($database_cs5read, $cs5read);
$query_getUsers = "SELECT user_id, first_name, family_name, username FROM users ORDER BY family_name ASC";
$query_limit_getUsers = sprintf("%s LIMIT %d, %d", $query_getUsers, $startRow_getUsers, $maxRows_getUsers);
$getUsers = mysql_query($query_limit_getUsers, $cs5read) or die(mysql_error());
$row_getUsers = mysql_fetch_assoc($getUsers);
if (isset($_GET['totalRows_getUsers'])) {
  $totalRows_getUsers = $_GET['totalRows_getUsers'];
} else {
  $all_getUsers = mysql_query($query_getUsers);
  $totalRows_getUsers = mysql_num_rows($all_getUsers);
$totalPages_getUsers = ceil($totalRows_getUsers/$maxRows_getUsers)-1;
?>
<!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>Registered Users</title>
<link href="../../styles/users.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>Registered Users</h1>
<table>
  <tr>
    <th scope="col">Real name</th>
    <th scope="col">Username</th>
    <th scope="col"> </th>
    <th scope="col"> </th>
  </tr>
  <?php do { ?>
    <tr>
      <td><?php echo $row_getUsers['first_name']; ?> <?php echo $row_getUsers['family_name']; ?></td>
      <td><?php echo $row_getUsers['username']; ?></td>
      <td><a href="update_user.php?user_id=<?php echo $row_getUsers['user_id']; ?>">EDIT</a></td>
      <td><a href="delete_user.php?user_id=<?php echo $row_getUsers['user_id']; ?>">DELETE</a></td>
    </tr>
    <?php } while ($row_getUsers = mysql_fetch_assoc($getUsers)); ?>
</table>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($getUsers);
?>
update_user.php
<?php require_once('Connections/cs5write.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;
$colname_getUser = "-1";
if (isset($_GET['user_id'])) {
  $colname_getUser = $_GET['user_id'];
mysql_select_db($database_cs5write, $cs5write);
$query_getUser = sprintf("SELECT user_id, first_name, family_name, username FROM users WHERE user_id = %s", GetSQLValueString($colname_getUser, "int"));
$getUser = mysql_query($query_getUser, $cs5write) or die(mysql_error());
$row_getUser = mysql_fetch_assoc($getUser);
$totalRows_getUser = mysql_num_rows($getUser);
if (isset($_POST['password']) && empty($_POST['password'])) {
  $_POST['password'] = $row_getUser['password'];
} else {
  $_POST['password'] = sha1($_POST['password']);
$editFormAction = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
if (isset($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
  $editFormAction .= "?" . htmlentities($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);
if ((isset($_POST["MM_update"])) && ($_POST["MM_update"] == "form1")) {
  $updateSQL = sprintf("UPDATE users SET first_name=%s, family_name=%s, username=%s, password=%s WHERE user_id=%s",
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['first_name'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['surname'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['username'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['password'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['user_id'], "int"));
  mysql_select_db($database_cs5write, $cs5write);
  $Result1 = mysql_query($updateSQL, $cs5write) or die(mysql_error());
  $updateGoTo = "user_list.php";
  if (isset($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
    $updateGoTo .= (strpos($updateGoTo, '?')) ? "&" : "?";
    $updateGoTo .= $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
  header(sprintf("Location: %s", $updateGoTo));
?>
<!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>Update user details</title>
<link href="../../styles/users.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>Update User Record</h1>
<form id="form1" name="form1" method="POST" action="<?php echo $editFormAction; ?>">
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Leave password blank if no change</legend>
    <p>
      <label for="first_name">First name:</label>
      <input name="first_name" type="text" id="first_name" value="<?php echo $row_getUser['first_name']; ?>" />
    </p>
    <p>
      <label for="surname">Family name:</label>
      <input name="surname" type="text" id="surname" value="<?php echo $row_getUser['family_name']; ?>" />
    </p>
    <p>
      <label for="username">Username:</label>
      <input name="username" type="text" id="username" value="<?php echo $row_getUser['username']; ?>" />
    </p>
    <p>
      <label for="password">Password:</label>
      <input type="password" name="password" id="password" />
    </p>
    <p>
      <label for="conf_password">Confirm password:</label>
      <input type="password" name="conf_password" id="conf_password" />
    </p>
    <p>
      <input type="submit" name="add_user" id="add_user" value="Update" />
      <input name="user_id" type="hidden" id="user_id" value="<?php echo $row_getUser['user_id']; ?>" />
    </p>
  </fieldset>
  <input type="hidden" name="MM_update" value="form1" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($getUser);
?>
Thank you!