[Resolved] PHP Game with Scoreboard/Top Ten

Hi, I have a PHP Hangman game on my website. It is a simple script that is readily available on the web.

What I want to do is have a top 5 players list or the like that would auto update as people played.

Seeing as I am brand new to the whole thing, I was wondering if anyone could give me a hand.

hello koan,

I can think of 2 easy solutions. Either store in a database or into a file

file format such as

scores.txt

1.name.score;
2.name.score;

';' is the line break. or you can just use /n

then run a loop 1-5 reading, check if need to update, then rewriting

I appreciate the reply, however, and I am not trying to act as lame as this is, could you dumb it down for me even more?

Hi Kaoness,

I'll try put it as simple as possible.

probably the easiest way of storing data is in a MySQL database. (see your host about accessing PHPMyAdmin).

Create a table called Scores, and create 2 fields;

1: Score (11 characters, set to interger)
2: Name (256 characters, set to verchar)

Now, every time a user finishes a game you should insert the data into the database with an sql statement.

it would kinda look like this:

$sql = "INSERT INTO Scores (Score,Name)
VALUES ('$Score','$Name')";

take a look at mysql_query at http://www.php.net/mysql_query there is a good definition on how to run a sql query.

You will also need to look at mysql_connect() to connect to the database.

Now to pulling the data out...

just as you did for putting the data in, you need to run a "query" a "select query looks like this...

$sql = "SELECT * FROM Scores ORDER BY Score DESC LIMIT 5"

that means to get everything from the Scores table ordered by The values in Score decending. (higest to lowest)

run mysql_query and put it into a reult

see mysql_fetch_assoc() for help on how to display data from a database.

There are plenty of tutorials on this. Use this information i have given you and try to dig up more.

Good luck

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