user message form

brokeDUstudent

Hey how's it going,
On my home page I want to have a section where users can enter their name and a msg (max 50 characters long) and submit it. It would reload the page and put their name, date and message in say the 'comments' area or something.. I'm guessing the best way to go about this is to have that info be written to a file (I don't have access to any MySQL databases) and read when the page is loaded. Is this the best method to do this? If it is, I tried finding some tutorials on how to read/write to a file.. but haven't come up with anything for a beginner, could anyone give me some tips or point me to a good tutorial?

Thanks for your help.

brokeDUstudent

I'm going to try and use what I can from this post.. sorry I didnt find it earlier.

I found some functions you use in reading/writing to files and put that in my search.. helped a lot.

Here's the link if you're curious:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10253069&highlight=fwrite+text+file

brokeDUstudent

Here's the PHP code:

if (@$submit == "yes"){
	$name = $_POST['name'];
	$msg = $_POST['msg'];
	$filename = 'rants.txt';
							// Check to see if file exists and is writable first.
	if (is_writable($filename)) {

            // Open the file in append mode
if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'ab')) {
    print "Cannot open file ($filename)";
    exit;
}

            // Write $msg to the opened file.
if (!fwrite($handle, $msg)) {
    print "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
    exit;
}

            fclose($handle);
} 
						else {
  print "The file $filename is not writable";
}
       }

Here's the code I have for my form:

I tested reading from the file after I put something in it.. and that worked ok. I've just been having trouble writing to the file after someone posts. Any ideas? I'll keep working at it.. thanks for your help.

onyx

I do not really understand why you are putting things in a file in the first place. You could just get the input from the user from the form via the post variables and then use these in order to customise the site. If the values are desired to be remembered for when the user revists then cookies could be used.

onyx

I have reread that and I now from 'comments' I gather you mean a guestbook.

Sorry about that.

What exactly is the problem you are having with reading/writing to the file after something has been wrote to it?

brokeDUstudent

Thanks for the reply onyx,
It seems I'm having more problems with the POST part vs the writing to file part. I think I need an IF statement at the top to check if the forms been submitted, and if it has write to the file and read it.. ELSE just read it. I'm not sure how to check if the forms been submitted though.. the code I had:

if (@$submit == "yes"){
//write to file
}

..doesn't seem to work. I'll keep trying a couple ideas I have and let you know how it goes, thanks for your response though.. sorry for the confusion.

onyx

<form action="index.php" method="post"> 
<input type="text" name="name" value="name"><br> 
<input type="text" name="msg" value="short msg" maxlength="50"><br> 
<input type="submit" value="submit"> 
</form>

If you use this without the submit variable then the values should be assigned to $name and $msg. Hence as opposed to checking if submit it set you want to determine:

if($name != "" && $msg != "")
{
//the rest of your code adding the comment to the file
}
else
{
//you should also do some error analysis
if($name == "")
{
print "you didn't enter a name";
}
else
{
print "you didn't enter a message";
}
}

brokeDUstudent

Hey, I have it reading/writing ok... I just set it up like this:
the index page just reads the text file.. and when the user submits the form, error checking is done and it's sent to "post.php" which adds the msg to the text file and takes the user back to the main page, works pretty decently. The next part I have to figure out is this.. when it reads the file it just reads it in one big line.. I would like to have something like this:

"user1
msg1

user2
msg2" and so on.. as of now it's just reading straight accross and displaying the msg on one line.

I personally have no clue where to even start w/this one.. but I'll take any suggestions. Thanks again onyx.

onyx

Well it depends what format you put the data into the file.

If you place it in with:

<name> <message>
<name2> <message2>
....

(meaning when you write to the file you would do so with the string "$name $msg\n")

//set up file handles
while (!feof ($handle))
{
$line = fgets($handle); //get line
$linevars($name, $message) = split(" ", $line);

//you can now use the $name and $message variables
}

brokeDUstudent

you are a genious onyx.. thank you, thank you.. and thank you.