A newbish question (forum post counts)

JimD

Ok, I'm working on coding a forum. I want to add post counts to it. Kind of like this board has. When a user adds a post or a topic, that amount is added to his/her post count. I'm really a newbie to php and can't think for myself yet (don't tell me to look in the manual because I don't know what half of that stuff means and how to use it). How would I go about that?

I think I need to create a column in the USERS table can call it postcounts. Then, when I user posts one topic and/or reply I need the number in that column to change to 1. When the user posts again, I need it to be changed to 2 and so on. How can I go that?
Thanks in advance. Oh and if I posted in the wrong forum, I'm sorry about that. I don't know where these types of question belong. It's both general and about php code =/

cgraz

Yeah, you're on the right track. Each post would add 1 to his postcount. So in pseudo

UPDATE your_table SET postcount = postcount + 1 WHERE user_id=34

You may need to run a query, get a value for postcount, then add 1 to that, then update table

$query = mysql_query("SELECT postcount FROM your_table WHERE user_id=34");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($query)

$postcount = $row["postcount"] + 1;

UDPATE your_table SET postcount='$postcount' WHERE user_id=34

Hope that helps.

Cgraz

su1d

Just a note that cgraz' "pseudo" SQL query will work out without any problem. There's no need to do all that code below. Just

mysql_query("UPDATE table_name SET postcount = postcount + 1 WHERE usr_id = 34");

JimD

So what do I do with usr_id=34? substatute with the ID of the user? Am I right?
And to display the postcount I would have to connect to the database and call the user_id and the number which is their postcount...right?

cgraz

yeah, user_id = 34 was just a sample. Normally, you would use somethign like user_id=$id (so it's dynamic).

JimD

Right, that's what I meant. With $uid.

Ok, how about showing their post count. How would I show it from the table?

cgraz

You mean display how many posts the person has?

$query = mysql_query("SELECT postcount FROM your_table WHERE user_id='$uid'"); 
$row = mysql_fetch_array($query) 

echo $row["postcount"] . " posts";

Cgraz