Adding a column of numbers

mickfitz

Hello

I'm looking for a script or maybe some help writing a script that will add up a column of figures in a Mysql table. It is for a charity event we are running. The 'idea' is that when funds have been raised ... they will go to an online form (I can do that side OK) ... fill in the sum they have raised ... that will then be added to the total and displayed on a web page for all to see how things are progressing. I suppose what I'm looking at is something similar to the way Excel calculates a column of numbers. I hope it's easy to do?

I'm a raw beginner to writing scripts ... and I hope you guys can help me put something together for this 'charity' event.

TIA ... Mick

KevinMG

something like this may work...assuming you'd want to store each indivudual transaction in a new row of the database...

$query = "SELECT `Amount` FROM `CharityTable` WHERE 1";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$total = 0;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$total += $row['Amount'];
}
echo "Total Raised: \$$total";

..where "Amount" and "CharityTable" are replaced with actual values you're using for your MySQL table.

mickfitz

many thanks for the quick reply. With my little knowledge I've set up the mysql connection and used a table that already has figures in it to test the script ... it looks like this:

mysql_connect ("mysql.website.co.uk", "username", "password");
mysql_select_db ("dbname");

$query = "SELECT 'item_num' FROM 'history' WHERE 1";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$total = 0;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$total += $row['item_num'];
}
echo "Total Raised: \$$total";

But now I'm getting this error message and I don't know how to solve it:

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /www.night-owl.co.uk/addup.php on line 9
Total Raised: $0

Any ideas please?

TIA ... Mick

xblue

this means your query failed for some reason. using mysql_error() should provide a more meaningful error message.

also, you can select a sum right in the query instead of looping through the results.

<? 

mysql_connect ("mysql.website.co.uk", "username", "password"); 
mysql_select_db ("dbname"); 

$query = "SELECT SUM(item_num) AS total FROM history"; 
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error()); 
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result));
echo 'Total raised: $'.$row['total'];
?>

And please use the [php] [/php] tags when posting code, it is so much easier to read.