Looping thru a database

flash-genie

Hello,
Im a newbie to the forum and the (daunting) world of mySQL and PHP!
I am trying to create a ticker in Flash getting the variables from an external textfield which is easy enough.
I now want the textfile to get updated when I add new data to the mySQL table by selecting the last 3 entries sorted by what date they were added.
Through various searches I have managed to put the below code together. It works fine, placing the rows nice and neatly into a table.

<?php
$db = mysql_connect("localhost","root");
mysql_select_db("pane",$db);
$smallresult= mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news ORDER BY whatdate DESC limit 3",$db);
echo "<table border=1 width=400>\n";
while($myrow2 = mysql_fetch_array($smallresult)){
printf ("<tr><td>%s<br>%s<br>For more information click <a href='%s' target='_blank'>here</a> Posted by %s on %s</td><tr>\n", 
$myrow2["kopf"],$myrow2["inhalt"], $myrow2["mehr"], $myrow2["posted"], $myrow2["wann"]);
	}
echo "</table>\n";
?>

How would i go about getting the newest 3 entries of "inhalt" into a single variable so that I can then save them to a textfile in this sort of fashion:
&tick=the content from the first row of inhalt&tick2=content from the second row of inhalt&tick3=you guessed it !!!&

All the examples I have found always use printf which I dont think will let me put it into a variable, maybe in some sort of loop like

$var=1;
while($myrow2 = mysql_fetch_array($smallresult)){
printf("&tick".$var."=%s",$myrow2["inhalt"]);
$var ++;
}

I would appreciate any help anyone can give me.

Thanks for reading!

cahva

Perhaps something like this?

$var=1;
$ticks=array();
while($myrow2 = mysql_fetch_array($smallresult)){
	$ticks[]='tick'.$var.'='.urlencode($myrow2["inhalt"]);
	$var ++;
}
$var2=implode('&',$ticks);

flash-genie

Thanks Cahva for your help!
About 10mins ago I found a thing called mysql_num_rows, with which I can loop through the rows and add them to a var that I kick out at the end of the loop.

<?php
$db = mysql_connect("localhost","root");
mysql_select_db("pane",$db);
$smallresult= mysql_query("SELECT * FROM news ORDER BY wann DESC limit 3",$db);

//the loop :-)
//find out the number of rows
//here it is 3 because we limited it in the query

$num = mysql_num_rows($smallresult);

//loop thru them

for($var=0;$var < $num;$var++){

//get the result from the "inhalt" column
$info=mysql_result($smallresult,$var,"inhalt");
//add it to the endis variable
$endis = $endis."&tick".($var+1)."=".$info;
}
//kick it out with an ampersand at the end because Flash likes that
echo $endis."&";
?>

Just have to make an "add a news entry and call $endis" page now.

I like your code a lot more in fact, is there a need for the urlencode in there, or is that "being on the safe side"?

implode would be the same as join in other languages? Ill go look in the reference.

Once again thank you!

cahva

Definetly on the safe side yes. You could get a broken link if theres some special characters used(for example theres "&" sign in the middle of tick-var.) .

Actually you can use join() function also, its alias of implode().

Always use that "while($row= mysql_fetch_array($result))" if you can because its more faster(and cleaner IMHO) than use for-loop.

Personally I use mysql_num_rows to check if theres results. Like this:

$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = mysql_query($query);

if (mysql_num_rows($result)>0) {
     while($row=mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
          // Do what you want with the results
     }
} else {
     // If not found, do something else
}

I myself try to avoid using for-loop whenever possible 🙂 Dont ask me why 😉

TaffL

Thanks again for the insight.

I have to admit its quite easy to learn, just getting good will be a problem.

I picked up Managing & Using mySQL by O'Reilly today...its very well explained.

I can understand a for loop taking quite some time with a few thousand entries, so Ill try and keep my syntax clean.

Thanks again cahva!