Inexperienced coder needs direction bad

[MsShelle]

Hello All,

I have a couple of questions that I am sure some of you more experienced coders can help me with and I would greatly appreciate you taking the time to answer me.

My first question is how do I automatically inform users of new activity on the site via email?
To be a little more clear, my site is a transportation site and when users post their available freight loads, I want the db to automatically send a email to all subscribers who have elected to receive these "freight alerts". I want it to include all the information for that particular load in the email and I am not even sure how do I get it to send the email. Just plain text, I know I am not ready to handle html mail. 😃 Also, I do not want to flood anyones email with a numerous "freight alerts" is there a way to set it to automatically send emails when new posts have reached a certain number? I would like to send these alerts like 3 times a day with all the new posts from a specific time period included.

My second question is dealing with search results....For instance, you can search my site for all available loads but the information for one load is alot so I just want the results to include basic information and for a user to see the full details of that particular load, I want them to click on a "load number" which is displayed in the search results, which then brings up a seperate pop up window, my question is how do I make the load number hyperlinked to this window?

Ok, stop laughing :p I am still new at this and I am doing it all from scratch which needless to say has been one helluva challenge but worthwhile.

Thanks for taking time to stop and help!

MsShelle
[e-mail]

[jblack]

I've actually done something similar to what you are doing.
First to send mail use the "mail" function the manual is here.
If you want the server to wait and send them several loads at once, it will have to be something that looks through the databases, and sees what loads were last posted since they recieved an email (You could do this by recording the last date you sent them an email, then having the script look at the date that an email was last sent to them, then you can construct an SQL query that will pull out all the loads posted since then, it will take some work, but it can be done.) For information on running PHP from the command line (Which is where I'd recommend you running a script that sends email to people once a day) look at http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.php

For your second question: Each load needs to have a unique ID number. It sounds like you are going to have a big search index, that shows general details about freight, and then an option to click and see more details. In the search index page, when you provide them a URL to click on, you need to encode that unique ID into the URL, so the script printing all the details can tell which load to print information about.

An example: Say the Unique ID number for the loads is called a "Load ID". When you are returning information in the search index, the URL for the first load on the page could be: "viewdetails.php?loadid=1234567890"
The second Load's URL might be "viewdetails.php?loadid=3437283722". Now when the "viewdetails.php" script gets called, it pulls the "Load ID" out of the URL requested and then searches for a row in the database with that Load ID, and returns all the information for that row.

Some other helpful links: Using MySQL with PHP http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.mysql.php

MySQL Documentation: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/index.html

[MsShelle]

Thanx for your help!

I did learn more about the mail function when I started creating the membership system for my site. I understand how that works now as well as how to implement it into the site to send mail for other functions.

I am still working on how to get my search scripts to work like I want them but I think with a little more time, I will be able to accomplish my needs.

Thanks again

MsShelle

[MsShelle]

Originally posted by jblack

For your second question: Each load needs to have a unique ID number. It sounds like you are going to have a big search index, that shows general details about freight, and then an option to click and see more details. In the search index page, when you provide them a URL to click on, you need to encode that unique ID into the URL, so the script printing all the details can tell which load to print information about.

An example: Say the Unique ID number for the loads is called a "Load ID". When you are returning information in the search index, the URL for the first load on the page could be: "viewdetails.php?loadid=1234567890"
The second Load's URL might be "viewdetails.php?loadid=3437283722". Now when the "viewdetails.php" script gets called, it pulls the "Load ID" out of the URL requested and then searches for a row in the database with that Load ID, and returns all the information for that row.

Ok, I am still working on this part of the application but I am still a little confused and maybe you can clarify some of it for me....
Ok, now the "load id"....how would I go about assigning this number or would the db assign it?

Since the loads posted would be from many different users (of different companies all registered users of the site) overall ABC company, DEF Company and so on will all have access to post their available loads, so I guess what I mean, how I can know the "load id" in advance?😕

Thanks for all your help!
MsShelle

[jblack]

The Load ID should be a random number generated when the Load is put in the database. It should not be something the user assigns the load, but something you should assign the load when it is posted. Some code for this:

$i = 2;
while ($i > 1)
	{
	$loadid = rand(1,99999999) . rand(1,99999999) . rand(1,99999999) . rand(1,99999999); #Puts 4 numbers that are 1-99999999 together to make a Load ID
	$query = mysql_query("Select count(*) from loadlistings where loadid = '$loadid'"); #Returns the amount of rows that have the same Load ID
	$result = mysql_result($query, 0);#Assigns $result the value of the first row in $query
	if ($result < 1)
		{
		$i = 0;#Stops the loop because we found an unused Load ID
		}
	}

I'm not exactly how to generate truely random numbers on the first time, so this code will generate a random number, then check to see if it is used (It knows by seeing if there are any Load Ids currently matching that. If not, it knows it isn't being used).

[MsShelle]

Some code for this:

$i = 2;
while ($i > 1)
	{
	$loadid = rand(1,99999999) . rand(1,99999999) . rand(1,99999999) . rand(1,99999999); #Puts 4 numbers that are 1-99999999 together to make a Load ID
	$query = mysql_query("Select count(*) from loadlistings where loadid = '$loadid'"); #Returns the amount of rows that have the same Load ID
	$result = mysql_result($query, 0);#Assigns $result the value of the first row in $query
	if ($result < 1)
		{
		$i = 0;#Stops the loop because we found an unused Load ID
		}
	}

I think I got the hang of it now but what I would like to know is how do (or should I ) change that block of code to generate more than a 4 digit load id? Because I am thinking , what happens when more than 9999 loads are posted, what happens then?

Bare with me, I'm learning as I go....Thanks in advance

MsShelle

[dustbuster]

Hello,

Just thought I'd add my 2 bits. If you set up your table to have an autoincrementing field you won't have to generate a random number for the load id. Since it is the primary key it will be unique.

CREATE table loads (
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
PRIMARY KEY (id),
.
.
.
.
.
);

Hope this helps a bit.

[MsShelle]

Thanks dustbuster,

For stopping to help, it's really appreciated! 😃

Now, I'm off to try and make this script work.....Thanks again

MsShelle