need help with opening and grabbing part of text file, inserting into HTML

Avenirex

I am about as new to PHP as you can imagine, I was showed two days ago how to dynamically create a portfolio page ( http://www.avenirex.com/v4/large_image.php ) using a url entered.

I am sure there is a way to make it simpler (and with cleaner urls) using a text file database, but I have no idea even what to search for on the web.

The text file / database would have three variables per "project" item

title, image, description

example:

final_project: studio final, final.jpg, final project from school

and so on for each project or item I enter into the text file

the php file (above) has just those three simple parts, I just need a way to do "large_image.php?id=final_project" or something along those lines, and have it create the page for me.

1) how do I set up a simple text file (mysql databases and such seem like overkill, but then I don't do this stuff ever) with the projects and their respective variables listed

2) how do I set up the .php file so that it grabs (based on the url entered) the right "project" and its respective variables and creates the 3 dynamic parts of the page (echo? print?)

If possible, a solution would be mindblowingly wonderful, but any help as to what I should even search for on google or elsewhere would be of immense help too. I'm sorry this is long, and I'm sorry I don't know jack about php, but I'm learning, I promise 😃

Thanks for the help in advance,

bad76

Hi
may be usefull to look this function:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.explode.php

You can read formatted input from file with this.
with just a piece of code like this:

if ($fp) {  $data = explode("\n", fread($fp, filesize($nome))); }
for($i=1; $i<($lung+1); $i++){
	$riga=explode(";",$data[$i]);
                ... do output ...
}

Else you can't insert directly a data object, as jpg or wav,
you can post it on a directory and memorize the path & name
in the file...

see you

Avenirex

Thanks, I'll see if I can put it to good use tonight. However, any other suggestions or ideas from anyone else on what exactly I should be looking for would be great.

Avenirex

ok, here's the deal: I've given up on the text file idea (as it's not really necessary) and, after reading up a bit on more php stuff and variables, I tried to write out what I thought was a good code, however, I didn't expect it to work, and it didn't. This is the code of the .php file:

<html><?php
$como = array (
		title=>"Como Project",
		img=>"http://www.avenirex.com/quickies/optima.jpg",
		desc=>"Como project description, image is optima",
			);

$stufin = array (
		title=>"Final Studio Project",
		img=>"http://www.avenirex.com/quickies/lithos.jpg",
		desc=>"Studio Final description, image is lithos",
			);
			?>

<head><title>avenirex | portfolio &gt; design &gt; <?php if(!empty($project[ title])){echo($project[ title]);}else{echo("BLANKTITLE");} ?></title>
</head>

<body>
<p><img src='<?php if(!empty($project[ img])){echo($project[ img]);}else{echo("http://www.avenirex.com/quickies/ah.gif");} ?>' alt="" border="0"></p>
			<p><?php if(!empty($project[ desc])){echo($project[ desc]);}else{echo("GENERIC DESCRIPTION IF NO VARIABLE");} ?></p>
		</div>
	</body>

</html>

what I want to do is enter a URL such as http://www.avenirex.com/v4/project=$como and have it replace all instances of "$project" with "$como" thus filling in my gaps in the page, and creating a project page based on the url. but, for some reason, this does not work, and I suspect it has to do with defining a variable as being another variable. is there a way around this? am I simply using the wrong notation in the URL? Please help, I'm stuck at this point.

Avenirex

alright, stab number three, this time using the url affect the "if" and "elseif" tags, hopefully thereby activating the right array, and then letting the code in the html grab from teh array. go figure, it didn't work... but why?

<html><?php

if ($project_==_"como")_{

array (
		title=>"Como Project",
		img=>"http://www.avenirex.com/quickies/optima.jpg",
		desc=>"Como project description, image is optima",
			);
}
elseif ($project_==_"stufin")_{

array (
		title=>"Final Studio Project",
		img=>"http://www.avenirex.com/quickies/lithos.jpg",
		desc=>"Studio Final description, image is lithos",
			);
}
?>

<head>
<title>avenirex | portfolio &gt; design &gt; <?php if(!empty($project[ title])){echo($project[ title]);}else{echo("title");} ?></title>
	</head>

<body bgcolor="black" text="#bbbbbb" link="#bbbbbb" vlink="#bbbbbb">
	<div align="center">
		<p><img src='<?php if(!empty($project[ img])){echo($project[ img]);}else{echo("http://www.avenirex.com/quickies/ah.gif");} ?>' alt="" border="0"></p>
		<p><?php if(!empty($project[ desc])){echo($project[ desc]);}else{echo("generic description text because i screwed up");} ?></p>

	</div>
</body>

</html>

the URL for this page, to try and make it work, is http://www.avenirex.com/v4/test_if.php

bad76

Hi,
Try to put keys in " ":

$project["img"] instead of $project[ img]