Quick db php question

pinehead18

I just coded some forums, and i have a quick question. Should i have 3 tables, forums/topics/threads or should i just have 2 tables forums/threads and an extra field in the threads db that identifies if that row is a topic or not?

Thank you
Anthony

sneakyimp

it depends on what sort of additional features you might want your topics to have. i.e., resolved, number of times viewed, etc. i don't consider myself an expert, but i say go for the extra table!

pinehead18

I have the extra table. But that also generates another problem. on my site i have a "recent forum posts" section. I want it to display the most recent forum post in the forum including a new topic. However, i can't figure out how to add another table to the code. This is my function i already have created for it.

function recent_forum_posts() {

    db_connect('lkcforum');

$sql = "SELECT author,subject,tid FROM threads ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 0, 8";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

    $subject = $row['subject'];
    $tid = $row['tid'];
    $author = $row['author'];
       if (strlen($subject) > 15) {
                    $filler = "...";
                    $subject = substr($subject, 0, 15 - $filler) . $filler;
            }
    print "&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=/forums/viewtopic.php?tid=$tid&fid=$fid>$subject</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;By: $author";
    print "<br><br>";
 }
}

Suggestions?

Thank you
Anthony

sneakyimp

i'm not sure exactly what you mean, but it sounds like you want to display the name of the topic for any topics that have recently had a thread added. if so, you are going to need a field in your THREADS table that references the corresponding topic.

suppose your tables are something like this:
THREADS
id
author
subject
tid
TOPICS
id
title

then think about trying a query like this:

$sql = "SELECT t1.author,t1.subject,t2.title FROM threads as t1, topics as t2 WHERE t1.tid=t2.id ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 0, 8";

I haven't test that, but i think it's close. if you're using mysQL then you should think about getting phpMyAdmin. you can test queries with it. super useful.