Help me! I'm in the dark... NEWBIE HERE!!!

eeklipzz

Problem: I'm looking for a way to create an Announcement Section on my website that has a corrosponding form that is only accessible by the system administrator.

MySQL has a tendency (for me) to add a new entry every time the for is submited. How can I limit the amount of entries to my sql... So that there will only be one entry in the mysql at any given point of time.

So say I have an announcement to give out for the day, and I don't want to do a bunch of coding... I just want to be able to fill out a simple form click submit... and the web page is now updated (with only the new announcement showing). I don't want to keep track of old announcements....

I really look forward to a response. Please if you have any ideas, or suggestions, let me know 😃 thanks 🙂 🙂 🙂

gufmn

Sounds like a simple thing to fix but we'll need to see the relevant code to help.

eeklipzz

There are three pages that I have been working with. I'm trying to alter my guestbook code to carry out this procedure:

*******FIRST PAGE: the form*******

<html>
<head>
<title>comments</title>
<style type="text/css">

</style>

</head>

<font color="#FFFF99" face="Verdana"><b>Welcome to the Camp Bethel Guest Book!!! 🙂</b>
<br>
To make an entry, please fill the form out below:</font><br><br><br>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td><form name="form1" method="post" action="store_comment.php">
<table width="500" border="0" align="left" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td width="151"><div align="right">Your Name: </div></td>
<td width="359"> <div align="left">
<input name="name" type="text" size="36">
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><div align="right">Your Email Address: </div></td>
<td> <div align="left">
<input name="email" type="text" size="36">
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><div align="right">City:</div></td>
<td> <div align="left">
<input name="city" type="text" size="36">
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><div align="right">Message: </div></td>
<td> <div align="left">
<textarea name="message" cols="36" rows="6"></textarea>
</div></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> <div align="right">  </div></td>
<td align="left"> <div align="left">
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit">
</div></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><br> <br>
<?php
// Make DB Connection
$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "katie@localhost", "********");
mysql_select_db("expressions",$db);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT FROM guestbook ORDER BY id DESC");

	// Build Table
	echo "<table width=\"70%\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"2\" cellpadding=\"2\">\n";
	echo "<tr><td><strong>Name</strong></td><td><strong>Email</strong></td><td><strong>City</strong></td><td width=\"30%\"><strong>Message</strong></td><td><strong>Date</strong></td></tr>\n";
	// Populate Table from Guestbook Data
	while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
		printf("<tr><td>%s</td><td><a href='mailto:%s'>reply</a></td><td>%s</td><td>%s</td><td>%s</td></tr>\n", $myrow[1], $myrow[2], $myrow[3], $myrow[4], $myrow[5]);
	}
	echo "<td align=\"right\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\" colspan=\"5\"><a href=\"comments.php\">Sign the Guestbook</a></td></table>\n";

	// Close Connection
	mysql_close();

?>
  </td>
</tr>

</table>

</center>
</body>
</html>

*******End FORM*******

*******LAST PAGE: Storing it.*******

<body bgcolor="#9999FF"><center>
<? // code for store_message.php

$dbname = "expressions";   

// Connect to Database and select the database to use 
$dbi = mysql_connect("localhost", "katie@localhost", "*********") or 
die("I cannot connect to the database. Error :" . mysql_error()); 
mysql_select_db($dbname,$dbi); 

// Get the values posted from the Form in comments.php 
$name = $_POST["name"]; 
$email = $_POST["email"]; 
$city = $_POST["city"]; 
$message = $_POST["message"];
$date = date('Y-m-d', mktime()); 


// Insert the Details into the Database 
$sql = "INSERT INTO guestbook(name,email,city,message,date) VALUES('$name','$email','$city','$message','$date')"; 
$result = mysql_query($sql,$dbi); 
If ($result) 
{ 
	echo "Thank You!!!<br>"; 
	echo "<a href=\"guestbook.php\">Click here to go back to the Guestbook</a>" ; 
} else 
	echo " Your details were not added due to some database problem";

</center>

PurpleMonkey

Instead of adding new rows each time, try just editing the same row each time as you said you only wanted to show the most recent result:

$sql = "update tablename set fieldname = new-value where id = number";

If you want to store all of the results but only want to show the last one then you will need to change the SELECT statment so that is ordered by id in descending order, and set the limit of returned rows to 1 using:

$sql = "select fieldname from table order by id descending limit 1"; (I'm not sure which order the limit/descedning come in, you may want to check that)

hope this helps you out.

gufmn

....every time the for is submited.

I totally misunderstood your problem. I just realized you meant to type "form" not "for". I thought you had a for loop that kept inserting multiple records into mysql.

Anyway, I would go with PurpleMonkey's 2nd suggestion(the order by and limit option). You never know when you might want to dig up some of those old entries.

eeklipzz

Thank you both. They are both great ideas and I will probably take the second idea. That is a great idea. Thanks again.

planetsim

Just something for future reference when posting code please use [php][/php] or [code][/code] it makes it easier for people.