I want to display last article

kappaluppa

I want to be able to click on a link that displays the last article entered into a database. Of course, i won't know the number of the article, since it will continually change.

This is what I have:
http://www.andrewsamerica.com/dynamics/resultsbb.php?article_id=

I don't know what to put after article_id to make it pick the last article, instead of a specific article.

Thanks!
Kathy

mattr

Depends on your DBMS and their SQL.

Generally I'd have something like this:
http://www.andrewsamerica.com/dynam...php?article_id=

$article_id = intval( $GET[ 'article_id' ] );
if( !$article_id ) {
  // show newest
  $res = database_query( 'SELECT *
                            FROM article
                           WHERE article_id = ( SELECT MAX( article_id )
                                                  FROM article )' );

} else {
  // show a specific
  $res = database_query( 'SELECT *
                            FROM article
                           WHERE article_id = ' . $article_id );

} // end if

// now show article

If you are using MySQL your best bet would be to run "SELECT * FROM article ORDER BY article_id DESC LIMIT 1" since MySQL does not support subselects.

kappaluppa

That answered what I asked and also a question I needed to ask, but didn't. Thanks!

But, after thinking about it, I think I asked the wrong question to begin with!!! (sorry!) I will try to ask it the right way now...

I want to be able to pull the most recent article based on the date field and subject field. I can do that now, just like you said using this:

$Query2 = "SELECT *, DATE_FORMAT(date, '%m-%d-%Y') AS date_format from $TableName where subject LIKE '%feature%' ORDER BY date desc LIMIT 0,1";

But I want to be able to also be able to display a specific article, if one is specified, i.e. www.foo.com/article.php?article=n, in the same output page. Right now I'm coming up with either the random article or both articles.

I tried to substitute my code in your code where I think it is supposed to go. Is this right?

$article_id = intval( $GET[ 'article_id' ] );
if( !$article_id ) {
// show newest

$Query2 = "SELECT *, DATE_FORMAT(date, '%m-%d-%Y') AS date_format from $TableName where subject LIKE '%feature%' ORDER BY date desc LIMIT 0,1";

} else {
// show a specific
$sql = "select *, DATE_FORMAT(date, '%m-%d-%Y') AS date_format FROM articles where article_id = '$article_id' ORDER by date DESC";

} // end if

// now show article

And.......

I need to be able to get to this page and show a link for the newest article.

kappaluppa

What I want the link to do is:

If an article_id is not specified, display the most recent, based on date and subject.

or else

If an article_id is specified, display only that article.

And this needs to happen from a link to that page. One link will be to the random article, and another link might have the article_id.

(I can think in If/Else terms in regular-speak, but I have not figured out how to do it in code yet!)

Thanks. Sorry if this is confusing. Thanks for your help.

Kathy

kappaluppa

I tried what I asked you and it worked.

Thanks for the help! (sorry for the headache!)

;o)

mattr

Glad I could help!