calling from database

Anon

alright, i'm new to php, so please don't kill me if my error is rather blatent, but... i'm currently trying to set up a mysql database driven site. i've got the code that sends information into the database to work perfectly.. but i can't, for the life of me draw the data from the database back onto the page.. so.. here's the code: (by the way - my server doesn't require a username or password to connect, so that's not the problem)

<?php
$table_name = "news";
$dbname = "slide_away";
$id_link = @mysql_connect("localhost","","");

if (! $id_link) {
    echo '<head><title>Error</title></head><body>';
    echo 'Connection to PHP has failed.';
    echo '</body>';
exit();
   }
$str_sql_all = "
    select count(*) as number_of_records
    from $table_name
";

$result =
    mysql_db_query($dbname, $str_sql_all, $id_link);

$record = @mysql_fetch_object($result);
$number_of_records = $record->number_of_records;

$number_records_to_display = 8;
$initial_record = $number_of_records;
$sort_field = 'key_news';
$sort_direction = 'DESC';

$str_sql = "
select *
from $table_name
order by $sort_field $sort_direction
limit $initial_record, $number_records_to_display
";

$result = mysql_db_query($dbname, $str_sql, $id_link);

$number_of_records_on_current_page =
@mysql_num_rows($result);

and then in the main table this:

<?php
for ($iindex = 0; $iindex < $number_of_rows; $iindex++) {
$record = @mysql_fetch_object($result);
echo '$record->date_shown : $record->update_headline <br>';
}
?>

any help would be greatly appreciated.. thanks

Anon

i think the problem is with your assignment of the first variable given to LIMIT in your SQL. you're setting it to equal the number of rows in your table $initial_record = $number_of_records

if you have 10 rows in your table then your SQL statement asks for 'LIMIT 10, 8' which, as i understand it, says start returning rows from row 10, for 8 rows. but as you've only got (say) 10 rows in your table, this recordset will always be empty

just my thoughts.. i may be wrong as i haven't used LIMIT before (although i may do know after looking it up... pretty useful for producing pages of results... do you know if there's any efficiency gains to be had using this over a normal SELECT?)

dom
🙂

Anon

While I'm not sure this is the problem, I'm guessing you're getting a line that looks like this from your echo statement:

$record->date_shown : $record->update_headline

The reason for this is that you used single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") in your echo statement. If you wish to imbed variables into your echo/print statements, you must use double quotes. If PHP sees single quotes, it won't process any variable replacements in a string before printing it out.

That might be confusing at first, but if you're someone who likes to squeeze as much performance out of your code as you can, using 'my string' can come in handy so you aren't making PHP scan every one of your echo'd "my string" strings for variables and such when there aren't any.

Anyway, replace that echo statement with this:

echo "$record->date_shown : $record->update_headline <br>";

and you should be all set 🙂

--Ryan

Anon

Oh, one other thing... I don't see you giving $number_of_rows a value anywhere in your code. Methinks that would break your for() loop.