For what I want to do, is this syntax correct? (url variable linking)

[Kinsbane]

How can I make a dynamic linking system via passing url variables based off an array of rows from a mysql table?

In english, here's the steps for what i want to do:

1) build an array of news_ID's from a db table (each news_ID is one item in the array)

2) user clicks a link with ?item=1 and a switch / case loop searches the array for the appropriate news_ID to display

I have no idea how I would go about doing this 🙁

thanks in advance!

[sks1024]

Just search the database on the item

i.e

if user clicks www.somewhere.com?item=1

do

do db connection

("SELECT * from database where item = 1");

[matt_4013]

Hi. Rather than getting ALL of the items everytime and searching the array, create your query with the news_id in it, so you only get the record you need from the database. Here's an example script:

<?php

// Connect to your database, if it fails, die and show the error
if(($db = @mysql_connect("host", "username", "password")) === false) {

	die("Could not connect to database!<br />".mysql_error());
}

// Check to see if the news_id is set in the url
if(isset($_GET['news_id'])) {

	// create your query that gets the data
	$sql = "SELECT * FROM news WHERE news_id='".mysql_escape_string($_GET['news_id'])."'";

	// run the query, if it fails, die and show the error
	if(($result = @mysql_query($sql, $db)) === false) {

		die("Could not execute query!<br />".mysql_error());
	}

	// Loop through the results of the query, and display subject and body
	while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {

		echo "<div class=\"newsHead\">".$row['subject']."</div>";
		echo "<div class=\"newsBody\">".$row['body']."</div>";
	}
} else {

	// Create the query
	$sql = "SELECT news_id, subject FROM news ORDER BY date";

	// run the query, if it fails display the error
	if(($result = @mysql_query($sql, $db)) === false) {

		die("Could not execute query!<br />".mysql_error());
	}

	// Loop through the results, creating a link using the news_id
	while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {

		echo "<a href=\"".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']."?news_id=".$row['news_id']."\">".$row['subject']."</a><br />";
	}
}

?>