Existing Username

Anon

I want to validate a username entered by a member against a username already in my database. So if a username exists then the record isn't inserted.

Please help
Oll

Anon

i just did this myself as a matter of fact.

What you want to do is within the script, of course is connect to the database and then query it limiting the query to search for records that have the username. Then use an if statement to check and see if the username matches, if it does indeed match, then you could redirect them using the header() function.

here is an example-

mysql_select_db($DBName, $Link1);

$Query1 = "SELECT * from users where user = '$user'";

$Result1 = mysql_query($Query1, $Link1);

$Array1 = mysql_fetch_array($Result1);

$usercheck = $Array1["user"];

if ($usercheck == $user) {

header(Location:"htpp://www.someplace.com");

exit;

}

else

(put in the query and a second connection here to insert the record)

*** this is an extremely simplified version, and it is not necessarily secure though. You can use an include file and have a function defined there that does all this for you, and it will hide your logic from users- just be sure to put the include file outside of the root directory.

Hope this helped you out?

Anon

One problem I have is that it does its job however I dont get the right message when it successfully inserts a record. My script is:

$Query = "SELECT * from members where username = '$username'";
$Result = mysql_query($Query, $db);
$Array = mysql_fetch_array($Result);
$usercheck = $Array["username"];
if ($usercheck == $username) {
die("<center>Error - Sorry but that username exists. Please go back and change it</center>");
} else echo "<center>Thank you! You are now a member!<br>Return to the homepage by clicking <a href='../index.php' class='tl'>here</a></center>\n";

Thanks very much so far as this is the closest I have come so far.

Thanks very much
Oll

Anon

It may be where you have placed that die statement. You might want to try the print statement and then the die statement OR, use exit after the print statement.

When I asked a month ago about how to end a script properly within an if statement, they told me the best way was the exit statement, it has something to do with the way the program halts. I think die cuts a connection and ends a program and exit effectly stops everything, including clearing out variable values. I am not sure though, it was a while ago. I just always use the exit statement.

Anon

I have changed the die statement to the print but I still dont get the THANK YOU BIT however it still inserts the data.