how do u count posts in a forum

Nathan__02

i cant figure it out...can someone help...like if you had board1, board2, etc. and u wanted to count how many posts are in all of hte topics in board1, board 2 etc...anyone?

thessoro

it depends on the architecture of your database, if you have, let's say just one table "post" with a "forum_id" to decide which forum the posts belong to... you just would have to do a "select count(*) from post"; but as said everything depends on how you have designed the db

Nathan__02

im not sure how to explain this to you...and i didnt understand what u said to well...

for the forum topics: viewtopics.php?bid=$board_id
for the posts: viewposts.php?bid=$board_id&&tid=$topic_id

heres my code andheres where you can find what it produces

forum.php

<?php
include 'config.php';
include("style.css");

echo "<table border=1 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=1>
<tr><td>Forum Areas</td><td>Posts</td><td>Last Update</td></tr>";

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM forum_areas ORDER BY last_update DESC");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
{
$postcount=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM forum_posts WHERE board_id=".$row['id']."");
echo "<tr>
<td><a href=viewtopics.php?bid=".$row["id"].">".$row["name"]."</a></td><td>";

count($postcount);

echo("</td>
<td>".date("M d, Y. h:iA",$row["last_update"])."</td>
</tr>");

}


echo "</table>";
?>

thessoro

$postcount=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM forum_posts WHERE board_id=".$row['id']."");

echo "<tr>

<td><a href=viewtopics.php?bid=".$row["id"].">".$row["name"]."</a></td><td>";

count($postcount);

i think i caught it.
You can't count $postcount as it's just a result handler, not an array itself!
For doing that, you have to do:

$number_of_posts=mysql_num_rows ($postcount);

But, if you aren't going to extract any information of the forum_posts table but only the number of rows, you shoul do this instead. (better perfomance)

$postcount=mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM forum_posts WHERE board_id=".$row['id']."");
$number_of_posts=mysql_result ($postcount,0);

hope it helps and hope you understand me now.