Show Date Once - News Script

[Parad0x]

I'm writing a news script, and I'd like to use the "Show Date Once" option seen on so many other scripts.

Basically, all the news written on a specific date gets shown once.

I'm using PHP and MySQL, all my news stored in a MySQL DB. Any ideas?

Thanks for help!

[cgraz]

You could store the date in each row along with the article in your database, then, when they click the "Show Date Once" link, run a SELECT query that selects all the articles with that particular date.

For example, if you have articles in the db with a field called date that has 20020505 as the date, make a date variable in your url:

show_date_one.php?date_selected=20020505

then run a select query

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM yourtable WHERE date='$date_selected'");

this is assuming your table is called yourtable and the date field in your mysql database is called date.

This should give you a good start.

Cgraz

[Parad0x]

I appreciate that idea, but I don't mean it that way.

This news script is going to post news posts on a site. The news from one day will all be under one date header, such as the news on this site:

www.rise-of-nations.net

Any idea how to do that in PHP?

Graci!

[cgraz]

Maybe I just don't understand what you're asking.

On this Rise of Nations site, they have the date

November 29, 2002
articles
articles

November 27, 2002
articles
articles

are you saying these were posted on these dates, and they display under a caption for the date they were posted, and you want to know how to do that in PHP/MySQL?

[Parad0x]

Exactly 😃

[cgraz]

This is how I'd do it.

For this example, you would have a mysql database with the fields:

id (set to auto increment)
date_month
date_day
date_year
article

Now create a form

-- form.php --

<form method="post" action="process.php">

Article: <br>

<textarea rows="10" name="article" cols="40"></textarea>

<input type="submit" value="Post Article">

</form>

-- end of form.php --

Now insert this into database with the current date

-- process.php --

<?

// get the date and create variables for month, day, and year

$today = getdate(); 
$month = $today['month']; 
$day = $today['mday']; 
$year = $today['year']; 

include("config.php");

// Connect to MySQL Server
@mysql_connect($server, $username, $password) or DIE("Couldn't Connect to MySQL Database");

// Select Database
@mysql_select_db($database) or DIE("Couldn't Select Database");

// run query to insert article into database
$query = mysql_query("INSERT INTO yourtable (date_month, date_day, date_year, article) VALUES ('$month', '$day', '$year', '$article')");

if ($query) {
   echo "Article successfuly Posted";
} else {
   echo "Your Article was not posted due to internal error";

?>

Now the page on your site with the news

--- news.php --

<?

include("config.php");

// Connect to MySQL Server
@mysql_connect($server, $username, $password) or DIE("Couldn't Connect to MySQL Database");

// Select Database
@mysql_select_db($database) or DIE("Couldn't Select Database");

?>

Articles for December 1, 2002<br><br>

<?

// run query to select all articles with this date
$query1 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM yourtable WHERE date_month='December' AND date_day='1' AND date_year='2002'");

// count # of records
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($query1);

while ($a_row = mysql_fetch_array($query1)) {
    echo "<b>Article " . $a_row["id"] . "</b><br><br>";
    echo $a_row["article"];
}

?>

<br><br>Articles for November 14, 2002<br><br>

<?

// run query to select all articles with this date
$query1 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM yourtable WHERE date_month='November' AND date_day='14' AND date_year='2002'");

// count # of records
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($query1);

while ($a_row = mysql_fetch_array($query1)) {
    echo "<b>Article " . $a_row["id"] . "</b><br><br>";
    echo $a_row["article"];
}

?>

There's lots of different ways of going about this, this is just the way I'd do it at first glance. Good luck!

[twilson]

Parad0x,

Here's how I would do this:

$QUERY = mysql_query("SELECT  * FROM yourtable ORDER BY id LIMIT 5");

while ($values = mysql_fetch_object($QUERY)) {

  if (($values->month == $prev_month) && ($values->day == $prev_day) && ($values->year == $prev_year) {
    echo "<P>$values->article";
  } else {
    $date = date("F jS, Y",mktime(0,0,0,$values->month,$values->day,$values->year));
    echo "<P>$date<P>$values->article;
  }
  $prev_month = $values->month;
  $prev_day = $values->day;
  $prev_year = $values->year;
}

Let me know if it works. I just typed it out, didn't test.

Peace,
Tom

[royviggo]

Great idea, but it is easier to use a date field. Also, remember to sort by date descending :-)

Roy

[kinadian]

cgraz: Your script would work wonderfully, except that you have to set the dates statically. I'd alter the script just a bit, to automatically determine if the date should be displayed or not.

Basically like this:

if ($curdate===$date) {
// display everything you need from db except the date
}
else {
// display everything you need from db including the date
// set $curdate equal to current articles date
}

If you use this template code in your script after you've run the query and are displaying the results, you'll find that it'll only display the date for the first article of that date (you can format the output so that is looks right) and for every article checks to make sure that the date of the current article is the same date as the previous one

--kinadian

[jonsof]

Originally posted by cgraz

include("config.php");

What is that script, you didn't mention that file!!

[cgraz]

Whoops! Habit.

config.php just holds the variables for the MySQL Connection.

-- config.php --

<?

$server = "localhost";
$username = "your_username";
$password = "your_password";
$database = "your_database";

?>

-- end of config.php --

Thanks jonsof, I didn't notice I had done that.

[jonsof]

By the way i would ask if can say the following:

connect.php

mysql_connect('localhost","username","password");
mysql_select_db("database_name");

mysql_close();

in order to use include statement like this

include("connect.php");
.....
.
.
.
.
.
.

Is that correct?

[kinadian]

If you include a file like that, it will put that code into the script.

So what will happen is, your script will connect to the database and then disconnect.

A better include file would be:

---- begin ------
//commondb.php

db_connect() {
mysql_connect('localhost","username","password");
mysql_select_db("database_name");
}

db_disconnect() {
mysql_close()
}
------ end -------

Now you'd have to expand on that if you want to connect to multiple db servers within one script (or if you want to specify any of the aruguments). Basically all you'd need to do after this is type db_connect() at the beginning of your scipt.

--kinadian

[jonsof]

I wrote that

<?
function db_connect() {
mysql_connect("localhost");
mysql_select_db("authentication");}

function db_close() {
mysql_close();}
?>

There is an general Execution Error, not line!!
What did i do wrongly?

[kinadian]

Well, my guess would be because you did not specify a username or password for your mysql database.

--kinadian

[jonsof]

Actually, no!
I use my database without pass and user and i can connect by using the previous statements, but i don't know where is the error!