Help a php newbie

[Archbob]

I'm having trouble appending data files, here my problem:

In index.php:

<form method="post" action="gbook.php">
Name: <input type="text" name="myname" size="10">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

In gbook.php :
<?php
$myname=fopen("data.txt", "ra");

?>

Data.txt is blank.

When I submit it shows a blank screen, help!!

[killerbishop]

Are you trying to fopen() a file in "read-only mode" AND "append mode"? Try:

$fp = fopen("data.txt","a");
if (is_resource($fp)) {

  fwrite($fp, "guestbook data");
  fclose($fp);

}

[Archbob]

I just want it to append so the guestbook will add an entry each time something is entered instead of write over it.

[sharul23]

hi Archbob,
I got two ways here, have a try;

//i got this somewhere from a site
$data = "data.txt";
if (file_exists($data)) {
  $file = fopen($data,"a");
  if(flock($file,2))
    fputs($file,$myname);
  else
   exit("Error: couldn't open file");

  if(flock($file,3))
    fclose($file);
  else
    exit("Error: couldn't open file");
   $entered = TRUE;
}

or this;

$file= "data.txt";
   $fileopen= fopen("$file,"w");
   chmod ($file, 0777);   

   fwrite($fileopen,$myname);
   fclose($fileopen);

😃

[Archbob]

Another question. I got my own solution, I made a show.php with the command to include data.txt so it works now. Hey how to I get a red horizontal bar to show up between entries? I know the html command is hr color="red" but when I try to pass that to data, it just gives me gibberish.

[bad_goose]

How do you guys insert that code in your post in a fixed width font and syntax-colored and stuff? Is that a feature of your editor, to output html-ized source code? It's sweet!

[bad_goose]

btw archbob, you should learn html better before you get into php.

[Archbob]

I know the command its <hr color="red"> Doesn't work in netscape, but it does in IE.

[dalecosp]

What kind of gibberish?

If you want the browser to see

<hr color="red">

then use 'echo' or 'print' as follows....

echo "<hr color=\"red\">";

within your ?php block.
The blackslash is used to 'escape' the quote sign so
the Php parser won't think the echo statement is finito.....

HTH, dalecosp🙂

[Archbob]

I want to know how to pass the hr color=red to my data file after every entry.

[Archbob]

<?
$newdata = fopen("data.php", "a");
fputs($newdata,"$myname<br>")
print( "<hr color=\"red\">");

fclose($newdata);

?>

I get a parse error on line 4

[bad_goose]

If you want your script to write the <hr> line to the file right after the <br>, just add the <hr> right there, like this:

<?
$newdata = fopen("data.php", "a");
fputs($newdata,"$myname<br><hr color=\"red\">");
fclose($newdata);
?>

[Archbob]

Now, one more annoying question(as you can see I got little from reading the php manual. How do I limit the guestbook to 25 entries and when it goes past the limit it deletes the oldest entry?

Thats it for my guestbook, now when I undertake to write my forum, you guys will be seeing thousands of more questions...

[bad_goose]

The way you've made your guestbook makes it very hard to delete old entries, because you would have to remove the lines from the beginning of the file. And since your data file is actually just a chunk of html, it's hard to get the script to count the entries accurately and determine which lines to remove.

The way the guestbook on my site works is when you submit an entry it saves the data to a text file in a simple format that I made up, which consists of entries that look like this:

<entry>
name::karl
age::15 (true!)
email::[e-mail]
comments::hey this is a guestbook entry blah blah
</entry>

Then I have a different script for viewing the guestbook, which opens that file, reads all that data into arrays, and then displays them by reading a different template file and applying the html formatting in it. That way it's easy to display entries in different ways and in different orders that they were submitted, because they are read into variables before being displayed.

In other words, the difference between your guestbook and mine is that yours creates the html formatting for entries when the entry is saved, whereas mine creates that each time the entries are displayed. I suggest you rewrite your guestbook and do it my way.

[bad_goose]

On second thought, after re-reading earlier posts in this thread, I can't expect you to understand any of that last post.

Oh well, hopefully it will help somebody.

[Archbob]

Umm I just need this script to work for right now.

I still need two things:

Right now, new entries append under old ones, how do I make it so that new entries go on top>
and finally How do I limit the number of entries?

[bad_goose]

That's my point - in order to do those things, you need to change the whole way your script works. Then you can display entries in reverse order, hide old entries, or do anything else with them very easily. But the way you have it now makes doing those things extremely cumbersome.