database (info) display order...

Henri

hello, I was wondering if there was a way to show the information with a current order, because the news I "fetch" from the database gets displayed "wrong"; newest news goes to the bottom of the page, whilst the old stays at the top.

I was wondering maybe there would be a "order by date inserted" command or something.

all help is greatly appreciated,

thanx

theslinky

you can do an order by date provided you have such a field.

I suggest you add a field like "date" and make it an integer. Use the time() command in PHP to give this date field a timestamp value when adding news entries.

in your SQL query, do:

SELECT * FROM news ORDER BY date DESC

you can also make date a MySQL timestamp or DATE format.

if you don't add a date field or some kind of field that represents when the news was added, it will be hard to get the news to display in order.

-sridhar

Henri

tahnx, but could you give me an example of how to do the stuuf with the time() and timestamp commands? (I really have no clue whatsoever what those are🙁 )

thanx

theslinky

Okay, first of all, you need to create a date/time field in your table. Let's name it "date_added" and give it the type INT.

When you are adding your news though your admin, set the time of it.

For example, say your doing this:

$SQ = "INSERT INTO news (title, content) VALUES ('$title', '$news')";

change the query to add your date_added field in there:

$SQ = "INSERT INTO news (date_added, title, content) VALUES (" . time() . ", '$title', '$content')";

next part: displaying the news in order

change your select query as follows:

$SQ = "SELECT * FROM news ORDER BY date_added DESC";

if you want to display the date added in a nice format, then do this:

echo "Date: " . strftime("%B %d, %Y", $row['date_added']);

where $row['date_added'] is the field from the database.

the strftime() function will format the timestamp into a human-readable string. In this case it will print out a date like:

August 20, 2002

-sridhar

Henri

thanx, I'll try it ASAP and tell you the results😉

Henri

well, I got this code (to insert)

$sql = "INSERT INTO SEA_news (content, date_added) VALUES ('$add_news', ' . time() . ')";
$query = mysql_query("$sql", $connect);

and when I check in the date_added field (thru phpmyadmin) all of the values entered are "0". (the news does'nt get displayed differently either)

theslinky

Change this:

$sql = "INSERT INTO SEA_news (content, date_added) VALUES ('$add_news', ' . time() . ')";

to this:

$sql = "INSERT INTO SEA_news (content, date_added) VALUES ('$add_news', '" . time() . "')";

the time() must be OUTSIDE the double quotes ("").

-sridhar

Henri

thanx, it works now, but something weird is happening when displaing the news I wrote. The first entry I put was'nt visible, so I made another. After making the second entry, the first was visible. After making the 3rd entry, the second was visible (along with the others I mentionned). And so on. So the news is like delayed. Is there a way to fix that?

thanx

theslinky

but are the entries in the database? if so, then it's a problem with the PHP.

show me your code where you display the news records.

-sridhar

Henri

okay here is all of it:

<html><head><title></title>

<?php include("style.inc") ?>

</head>

<body bgcolor="#002660">
<center>
<font color="white">
<!-- news start --!>
<?php
$db_name = "novaz3ro_com"; 
$connect = mysql_connect('localhost','***','***'); 
$db = mysql_select_db($db_name,$connect);

$sql = mysql_query("SELECT content FROM SEA_news ORDER BY date_added DESC", $connect);
$news = mysql_fetch_row($sql) or die("No news to be displayed.");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
echo "$row[content]<br><br>";
}
?>
<!-- news end --!>
</font>
</center>

</body>
</html>

theslinky

again, here is your problem. you are calling mysql_fetch TWICE... so the first one is never displayed

change this:

$sql = mysql_query("SELECT content FROM SEA_news ORDER BY date_added DESC", $connect);
$news = mysql_fetch_row($sql) or die("No news to be displayed.");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
echo "$row[content]<br><br>";
}

to this:

$sql = mysql_query("SELECT content FROM SEA_news ORDER BY date_added DESC", $connect);

// check to see if any rows
$numrows = mysql_num_rows($sql);

if($numrows == 0) {
    die ("no news");
}
else {
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
        echo "{$row[content]}<br><br>";
    }
}

Henri

thanx so much man🙂 Just one question, how would I empty a whole table's info? (whilst keeping it's fields).

would it be something like DELETE * FROM table_name

theslinky

yep, that would work.

the bestest/fastest way is to use truncate table:

TRUNCATE TABLE table_name

-sridhar

Henri

ok, thanx a lot🙂