help! text files as databases

Anon

Hi there,

I'm a PHP novice who's increasingly finding that PHP sites are for people who already know the language and how to impliment it all. This is no help for someone who's new to it like me.

Basically, I don't have database access, and so want to write to a text file via a guestbook type thing. This is fine, but I want to display X entries FROM that guestbook on a given page.

How do I define entries in the text file, so the script will know which ones to grab and place on the web page?

Any help much appreciated.

Andy, UK.

dolphinsnot

i'm sorry, but the first line of your post states that PHP sites are for people who already know the language........

if this is your basic mindset while approaching learning PHP, i don't think any of us can be of any help to you.

i'm fairly new to PHP also (6months), and have taught myself the language using the available web resources...before PHP, i had very little programming knowledge at all.

you say that php sites are hard for novices like you...how the heck do you think the rest of us learned it?!?!

if you don't take the time to learn the basics, what point is there in me sitting here and writing a detailed dissertation on using text-files in place of databases? that would be of no use to you...

i'm not going to bother trying to answer your question. work on your mental barriers and come back when you're ready, grasshopper.

-dolphinsnot

Anon

just sent you mail, you pitiful- yet comical- person.

dolphinsnot

umm...i dunno what you're talking about unless you enjoy sending strangers anonymous porn-spam...perhaps it's this filter on my email...i have recieved nothing from you and have no idea if that's a threat or not.

don't take my post the wrong way...although you asked a valuable question, you phrased it in a way that makes it difficult to help you.

by saying 'all these PHP sites seem to be for people who know the language which makes it hard for novices like myself', you make it sound as though you know nothing at all of the language. I understand you're a novice. I was one recently. But when you begin your question with 'This Stuff Is Hard. Help Me', I don't know where to begin.

i help lots of people here when they ask questions that i can help with. your question, however, gives me no usable infomation to start with.

what sort of footwork have you done? what sort of research? have you learned anything? do you know about variables? arrays? loops? functions? classes? escape characters? regular expressions?

what i'm getting at is that it appears to me that you have given up before even trying. i could easily help you work with a file as a database for your AOL guestbook widget if i knew where to begin, and if you gave some sort of indication about what you already know.

your post said "I'm Lazy. I Don't Know Anything About PHP, and Haven't Really Tried 'Cause It's Hard. Now How Do I Use A File For A Database?"

how do you expect me to respond????

whatever. i eagerly await the empty threats that lie withing your email i have not yet received....

-dolphinsnot

Andy wrote:

just sent you mail, you pitiful- yet comical- person.

Anon

dolphin- before you brand me as lazy, perhaps you should take your own sadly pre-judgemental self and step back a bit, and allow me to explain.

I wasn't looking for a pointless argument about whether I know PHP or not, an argument I find usually only started up by someone who has nothing better to do- I simply want to know where I might find some PHP examples or even some direct code linked to the query I posted.

And as for lazy, I have a job and other committments- I do not have god knows how many hours to learn PHP. Believe me I'd love to and if I could I'd do that before posting like this, but the fact is the site is for a disabled group who want to know how to do X, Y and Z with certain coding. In my ignorance to all things code, I thought I'd seek out help. But instead I get the third degree on how everyone should have time to learn the whole damn thing...

Your simple message- devote all your time to something if you want to know how it's done, don't you dare ask for help.

Mail me if you wish this farce to continue, I rarely have time to trawl forums.

Anon

In addition to my post, the short answer to one of your nicer questions is, no, I don't know about arrays, strings and the likes. I'm in the process of devoting what little time I have to it for researching those said topics.