inserting more than one value in a field then being able to retrieve them.

Gary

Hello all,
please bare with me as I try to explain what it is I need. I have been reading "php essentials" and these forums and feel php and mysql would be the way to accomplish my goal, but I'm not sure of how to implement it.... that is, I don't have the logic and problem solving skills of a programmer 😉

I wish to sell tickets online to members of my sight. They choose a number of tickets they wish to buy, they are given unique ticket number(s) based on the number they buy (stored in a mysql database), then when the tickets are sold, all the ticket numbers are pulled and a script picks a random ticket => thus a winner.

Any ideas on how I could do this? Suggestions on what I should be looking for in my php books?

Any help appreciated.
TIA,
Gary

planetsim

there seems to be more mysql needed then actual php

set up a mysql database..

you'll need a form, im assuming you know about forms...

then you'll probably should read up in mysql about insert into database, select from database and RND this is about all you really need...

And logic thinking isnt the key if you can say something out aloud for what you need done, maybe write it down on paper or something, think what would be needed for something..

ednark

i agree with planetsim...

this should require mostly database work... however if you are unfamiliar with php it will not be something you can just copy our of a book....

these tickets... are you or your client registered as a business that can assign UPC numbers... if so that's a whole nother ball game verifying, tracking, and printing barcodes to specs... if not there is a neat-o function [man]uniqid/man that might be helpful...

also if you are not running a windows maching there is another (and in my opinion superior) database system called postgres (also opensource) that you should check out... www.postgresql.org

what you should do is write out the specs of exactly what you need to have done... and exactly the flow of the process you wish to use... then either hire someone to work with you and show you how... or slowly work through each step.. and use the forum here as a sounding board for your ideas...

it's a "knowing is half the battle" type thing... its much much easier to find the php to do what you want if you know exactly what you want to happen...

Gary

Ok, I'm with you so far..... I still am stuck on a point.
Let's say Joe buys 3 tickets and is assigned ticket numbers 13,14,and 15.
Let's also say Linda buys 5 tickets and is assigned ticket numbers 16,17,18,19, and 20.

Is there a way to insert these ticket numbers in the respective users rows or am I approaching this all wrong?

tia again.

planetsim

well this is what id do.. have a table set up with ticketid being the ticket number an auto increment

ednark

you want to do a many to one relationship in your database.... usually this is done with three tables...

#one table for users
USER
-------
user_id

#one table for tickets,
TICKETS
-----------
tickets_id
ticekt_info

#one table for what users
#have what tickets

USER_TICKETS
-------------------
user_id
ticket_id

with this system you can assign one ticket to mulriple users or have one user assigned multiple tickets...

what you seem to need is a subset of this... you need to have a user hold many tickets... but a ticket only goes to one user....

so you can drop the USER_TICKETS table... or rather merge it with TICEKTS

#one table for users
USER
-------
user_id

#one table for tickets,
TICKETS
-----------
tickets_id
uer_id
ticket_info

this should allow each ticket (each row of TICKETS) to belong to one user (one row of USERS). but only allows one row of USERS to map to each row of TICKETS

now does this make sense at all or am i explaining the wrong thing to you

planetsim

That looks good ednark... if he implements what you did, then he should learn something as well as have his first php, mysql script

Gary

Yes!.yes!yes!

That's it!!!

Thank you very much.....
Told you it was logic 😉

I'll try it and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

Gary

Thank you so much... That helps a lot.

One last thing I'm having a hard time figuring out... in the ticket table, is there a way to ensure that everyone gets a different ticket number in each row?

Thanks again

ednark

the quickest sure fire way is to set the id column to
auto_increment... this will, upon insertion, always make the columns id one more than the last one created.. always unique

however this is super way to guess... so if you know your id... you know everyone elses.... since its one more or one less... so by induction... you know everyone... so you may want a harder way of determining unique numbers...

try php's [man]uniqid[/man] or maybe a [man]md5][/man] or something that will help determine a unique id...

search this board for more info... i konw this has been discussed

Gary

It makes sense to use uniqueid.... the thing is I don't need a large random ticket number.... just a unique random ticket number for each row. Lets say I am selling 30 tickets for a dvd player. I don't need large numbers.... just a random unique number ranging from 1000-1030 for example.

Do I need microtime functions for that?

ednark

then just use [man]mt_srand/man and [man]mt_rand()[/man] function

dont' use rand() or srand().. they just don't randomize at all

then: from off the top of my head. so there may be a better way


/// from man page of srand()
// seed with microseconds
function make_seed() {
    list($usec, $sec) = explode(' ', microtime());
    return (float) $sec + ((float) $usec * 100000);
}
mt_srand(make_seed());

/// really this is pulled from database
$already_used_numbers = array( '000', '001', '006', '285',  );

do {
     $unique_id = str_pad( mt_rand()%1000, 3, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
} while ( in_array($unique_id ,$already_used_numbers) );

/// if you get here you have a unique id