Newbie Script Woes

Anon

Below is a script I've been working on with the help of people and threads in these forums.

The idea is to strip any occurrences of "[image]any-number-here[/image]" (from the $string) of its tags, and leave you with just the number. When you've got that number, a query is then made against the appropriate table in the database in order to get the details of an image (thumbnail path etc), and then that information needs to be converted into proper HTML <img> tags and inserted at the exact point in the $string where the original "[image]" commands where.

Here's the script (I am still a newbie, so go soft please!)...

$string = 'blah blah .. [image]1[/image] ..';

$pattern1 = '[image][0-9]{1,}';
$pattern2 = '[\/image]';

$search_for_id = ereg($pattern1, $string, $arr_id);

// arr_id[0] will carry the matched string i.e. [image]001

// this will chop off the first 7 characters i.e. [image]

while ($imageid = substr($arr_id[0], 7))

{

mysql_connect (localhost, mylogin, mypass) OR DIE("Unable to connect to database");

mysql_select_db (mydb) OR DIE("Unable to connect to database");

$imageresult = mysql_query ("select ThumbPath FROM Photos where PhotoID=$imageid");

if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($imageresult))

                     do {
                           print $row["ThumbPath"];
                          }

};

...the first problem is a Parser Error. The error message states: expecting 'WHILE' on Line 30 (which is the last '};' in the script). I cannot get my head around this or where I am going wrong. It must be really obvious. Incidentally, on the line above the Parser Error message, I can see a correct image path retrieved from the database, matching to record 1 - so the basics of the script must be working.

...the second problem is something I can forsee going wrong once the above error is fixed. $string is eventually going to be swapped in place of a query result from another table of my database, which will carry the 'longblob' of text that contains these special [image] blocks. When I test this script and get the parser error, as I said above, I do see the correct image path name. However I do not see the "blah blah" text from the $string that is sitting around the [image] blocks. I need to leave whatever is in $string in its place and appear on the finished page, but have the [image] blocks strip down and convert to the necessary HTML <img> tags using path information from the database.

Can anybody help me finish this one off? I'm really struggling here. Thanks.

Mark

Anon

Hi,

the first problem is that the do { ... } part should look like this:

do {
...
} while (....);

The following code should do it at all:

<?PHP

// this function gets the image string from the database and returns it.
function getImageTag($number) {
$test=1;

if (!$test) {
mysql_connect (localhost, mylogin, mypass) OR DIE("Unable to connect to database");
mysql_select_db (mydb) OR DIE("Unable to select to database");
$imageresult = mysql_query ("select ThumbPath FROM Photos where PhotoID=$number");

if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($imageresult))
  return $row["ThumbPath"]; 
else
  return "";

} else {
return "<img src=\"test.gif\" width=\"100\" height=\"20\" border=\"0\">";
}
}

$string = "blah blah .. [image]1[/image] ..";

// regular expression
$pattern1 = "([image])([0-9]+)([\/image])";

echo "Start:".$string." \n";

while (ereg($pattern1,$string,$arr_id)) {
$string=str_replace($arr_id[0],getImageTag($arr_id[2]),$string);
echo "String: $string \n";
}

echo "End: ".$string." \n";

Anon

I cannot seem to get this to work either...

If the number in the test string is "1", the HTML <img> tags that you have put in the else statement always appear. This leaves me with the following code on the executed PHP page:-

Start:blah blah .. [image]1[/image] .. 
String: blah blah .. <img src="test.gif" width="100" height="20" border="0"> .. 
End: blah blah .. <img src="test.gif" width="100" height="20" border="0"> ..

There is definitely a corresponding table set-up in my database, so I cannot see the problem being the connection to the db or the table.

Maybe you could e-mail me to discuss this further? Your script is obviously closer to working than mine was, but it would be good if you could help "baby" me through the steps to getting it working how I want it.

Many thanks,

Mark
mark@houseofcuir.com

Anon

Hi Mark,

sorry, but I forgot to tell you that I added some test code. As you can see there's a variable $test. If you set $test=1 then always my test img tag will be printed. If you set it to $test=0 then the img data will be read from you database.
So just change $test=1 to $test=0 and the code should work 🙂

Thomas

Anon

Thomas,

Definitely a step closer! The image path from the record for record 1 is displayed on the test page.

So what I need to figure out now is how to meld this with a script for getting the content from the Articles table which will contain these special <image> tags.

Basically, the Articles table contains a field call "Content". This is a long blob, where I will paste the HTML-formatted text, which will have in it at certain points our special <image> tags.

Here's the very basic script I have for retrieving and displaying the Content field from my Artciles table. How do I intersect this with your script, bearing in mind that I need any occurrences of <image>numberhere</image> to convert to proper image tags (with full image path) at the point where they are displayed from the "Content" table...?

Thanks,

Mark

----BEGIN SCRIPT----

<?PHP

mysql_connect (localhost, mylogin, mypass) OR DIE("Unable to connect to database"); 
mysql_select_db (mydb) OR DIE("Unable to select to database");

if ($id == "")
{$id = '%';}

$string = mysql_query("SELECT Content FROM Articles WHERE ArticleID LIKE '$id%'");

if($row = mysql_fetch_array($string)) {

do {

                       print $row["Content"];

} while($row = mysql_fetch_array($string));

                     } else {

                       print ("error");}

----END SCRIPT----

Anon

Hi,

the way to the final script can't be very long anymore 🙂)

What about a new function:

function replaceTags($str) {

// regular expression
$pattern1 = "([image])([0-9]+)([\/image])";

while (ereg($pattern1,$str,$arr_id))
$str=str_replace($arr_id[0],getImageTag($arr_id[2]),$str);

return $str;
}

Then replace the row
print $row["Content"];
with
echo replaceTags($row["Content"]);

Your query
$string = mysql_query("SELECT Content FROM Articles WHERE ArticleID LIKE '$id%'");

might be optimizable.

When you're sure that the Article id within the <image> tags is correct then you can change the query to
SELECT Content FROM Articles WHERE ArticleID='$id'

and create an index on ArticleID
Example: CREATE INDEX (artid) on Content (ArticleID) (needs to be executed once)
If the id is always a numeric value you can further check if ArticleID is of type bigint or int or some other numeric type in your table.

It might be neccessary to improve the database connection and selection parts of the script to ensure that mysql_connect() and mysql_close() are only called when neccessary.

Anon

My code is turning into a bit of mish-mash, and the <image> tags are still not being converted in the content field - although the content field is now being displayed on the page. Also, the "start" and "end" echoes are always displaying the integer 2 next to them on the displayed page. Weird.

This is the exact script I have so far... and it needs a bit of fine-tuning I think!

Thanks,

Mark

-----BEGIN SCRIPT-----

<?PHP

if ($id)

mysql_connect (localhost, mylogin, mypass) OR DIE("Unable to connect to database"); 
mysql_select_db (mydb) OR DIE("Unable to select to database");

$string = mysql_query("SELECT Content FROM Articles WHERE ArticleID=$id");

function getImageTag($number) {
$test=0;

if (!$test) {

$imageresult = mysql_query ("select ThumbPath FROM Photos where PhotoID=$number"); 

if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($imageresult))
  return $row["ThumbPath"]; 
else
  return "";

} else {
return "<img src=\"test.gif\" width=\"100\" height=\"20\" border=\"0\">";
}
}

// regular expression
$pattern1 = "([image])([0-9]+)([\/image])";

echo "Start:".$string." \n";

while (ereg($pattern1,$string,$arr_id)) {
$string=str_replace($arr_id[0],getImageTag($arr_id[2]),$string);
echo "String: $string \n";
}

function replaceTags($str) {

// regular expression
$pattern1 = "([image])([0-9]+)([\/image])";

while (ereg($pattern1,$str,$arr_id))
$str=str_replace($arr_id[0],getImageTag($arr_id[2]),$str);

return $str;
}

echo "End: ".$string." \n";

if($row = mysql_fetch_array($string)) {

do {

                       echo replaceTags($row["Content"]);

} while($row = mysql_fetch_array($string));

                     } else {

                       print ("error");}

// this function gets the image string from the database and returns it.

-----END SCRIPT-----

Anon

Hi,

I added some example code to this mail.
By the way ... do you use [image]???[image]
or <image>???</image>. I think that ie4/5 interpret <image> and </image> so it would be best to use [image]???[/image] as custom tag.
I added both regular expressions to the code, use the one you want.

Hope it works...
T.

<HEAD>
<TITLE>Test-Script</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgcolor="#000000">
<?PHP

// variables (adjust)
$dblink=0;
$host="localhost";
$login="mylogin";
$pass="mypass";
$database="mydb";

// open connection to server and select database
function connect() {
global $dblink,$host,$login,$pass,$database;

$dblink = mysql_connect($host,$login,$pass) or die("Error connecting to mysql server");
mysql_select_db($database,$dblink) or die("Error selecting database");
}

// get image tag from database
function getImageTag($number) {
global $dblink;

if (!$dblink)
connect();

$strSQL = "select ThumbPath FROM Photos where PhotoID=".$number;

$imageresult = mysql_query($strSQL,$dblink) or
die("Error executing query");

if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($imageresult)) {
return $row["ThumbPath"];
// !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
// maybe you need this if you only store the path to the images in
// your database
// return "<img src=\"".$row["ThumbPath"]."\" border=0>";

} else {
return "";
}
}

// replace <image>???</image> tags with <img src=....> tag from database
function replaceTags($str) {

// regular expression
$pattern1 = "(<image>)([0-9]+)(<\/image>)";
//$pattern1 = "([image])([0-9]+)([\/image>])";

while (ereg($pattern1,$str,$arr_id))
$str=str_replace($arr_id[0],getImageTag($arr_id[2]),$str);

return $str;
}

// let's start

if (!$dblink)
connect();

// query string
$strSQL = "SELECT Content FROM Articles WHERE ArticleID=".$id;

// I changed this from $string to $content since string is a reserved word🙂
$content = mysql_query($strSQL,$dblink) or die("Error executing query");

// output articles with replaced <image>???</image> tags
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($content)) {
echo "\n"
.replaceTags($row["Content"])."\n"
."\n"
." ------------------------- \n\n";
}
?>
</BODY>

Anon

Oooops,

the bottom of my code (with the font tags)gets interpreted. Just look at the source of my reply to see how it looks like.