Problem with variables not staying set or something

[Dragonlord]

ok i know my code is kinda sloppy so please attempt to disregard that and try to help me 🙁 but i went and redone my chat script now when a person sends a tell to another person the first tell looks like this for example

You told Drathnartest, "test1"

then i send another tell right after that and the db entry changes to be this...

Drathnar_Nite`Mare told you, "test1"
You told Drathnartest, "test2"

and if i were to send another one test2 would become Drathnar_Nite`Mare told you

what is wrong with my script why is it always changing the previous tell to display the user that sent it as receiving the tell from themselves? instead of staying as you told $the_person

if ($command1 == 'tell'){

 include("db.php");

$explodit = explode(" ", $command);
$the_person = $explodit[1];

$queryb = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `character` WHERE Who='y' AND User='$the_person'");
while ($row = @mysql_fetch_array($queryb))
{

$messages=$row["messages"];
unset($explodit[0]);
unset($explodit[1]);
$command = join(" ", $explodit);


	$command2 = $user." told you, \"".$command."\"";
	$messages2 = $messages."<br>\n".$command2;

 $sqlquery2 = "Update `character` SET messages='$messages2' where User='$the_person'";
 mysql_query($sqlquery2);
 }
 mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `character` WHERE Who='y' AND User='$user'");
 	while ($row = @mysql_fetch_array($queryb))
{
$messages=$row["messages"];
}

unset($command2);
unset($messages2);
$command = "You told ".$the_person.", \"".$command."\"";
$messages = $messages."<br>\n".$command;
 mysql_query("Update `character` SET messages='$messages' WHERE User='$user'");
 mysql_close();

}

[Dragonlord]

well if i am not giving enough info please ask cause i really dont know what all i need to give.. i feel i have given enough but ive been stuck on this problem all day... i was having a problem with my chat script not working correctly so i totally revamped it and now have it stored seperate for each user rather than in one large db where all users accessed that one instead each user will access their own logs persay but thats probably irrelevant

[wilku]

I'm lost with all those queries loops and usage of query results (it seems you use $queryb twice, when it's the result of only one query). Wouldn't something like this suffice:

if ($command1 == 'tell')
{
//populate those varibles
$from="Sending_user";
$to="Receiving_user";
$message="test1";

AddMessage($from, "<br>You told $to: $message");
AddMessage($to, "<br>$from told you: $message");

}
//display messages for user;

//definition of AddMessage
function AddMessage($user,$msg);
{
$sql = "Update `character` SET messages=concat(messages,' $msg') where User='$user'";
mysql_query($sql);
}

[Dragonlord]

the reason there are two queries and updates is because if person a say me sends a tell to you it needs to update in both mine who would be $user and yours who would be $person

for example

i say

tell wilku hi

this query will select you being the person and then mod your
messages to read

Dragonlord told you hi

("SELECT * FROM `character` WHERE Who='y' AND User='$the_person'"); 
    while ($row = @mysql_fetch_array($queryb)) 
    { 

$messages=$row["messages"]; 
unset($explodit[0]); 
unset($explodit[1]); 
$command = join(" ", $explodit); 


    $command2 = $user." told you, \"".$command."\""; 
    $messages2 = $messages."<br>\n".$command2; 

 $sqlquery2 = "Update `character` SET messages='$messages2' where User='$the_person'"; 

while this query at the same time will mod my messages to display

You told wilku hi

 $sqlquery2 = "Update `character` SET messages='$messages2' where User='$the_person'"; 
     mysql_query($sqlquery2); 
     } 
     mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `character` WHERE Who='y' AND User='$user'"); 
         while ($row = @mysql_fetch_array($queryb)) 
    { 
    $messages=$row["messages"]; 
    } 

unset($command2); 
unset($messages2); 
$command = "You told ".$the_person.", \"".$command."\""; 
$messages = $messages."<br>\n".$command; 
 mysql_query("Update `character` SET messages='$messages' WHERE User='$user'"); 
 mysql_close(); 

the problem im running into is it works perfect as far as it would always display everything i say to you on your screen as i told you whatever no matter how many times i say something

but on my end when i say something like

tell wilku hi it will display you told wilku hi which is great
but then i say right after that tell wilku how are you today. then instead of displaying this

you told wilku hi
you told wilku how are you doing today

it displays

Dragonlord told you hi
you told wilku how are you doing today

then if i input tell wilku hello are you there?
it would then display

Dragonlord told you hi
Dragonlord told you how are you doing today
you told wilku hello are you there?

[Dragonlord]

im not that good at php so your way may work i dunno 🙁 hehe im a rather sloppy scripter most my stuff ends up working tho just hard to understand or follow...

[justsomeone]

Your code doesn't offer much of an explanation about how it is intended to work, so I'm going to have to take a forensic approach to the debugging.

The problem you find is that you get output like this:

you told wilku hi
you told wilku how are you doing today 

you get:

Dragonlord told you hi
you told wilku how are you doing today 

In the above example, the last line is fine, but the previous line(s) do something bad with the names of the sender and recipient.

The sender's message history is somehow getting screwed. You tell us that the sender is $user.

Somehow $theperson's history is appearing where $user's should be.

You don't mention that $theperson's history is getting screwed up, so I won't follow that up.

In order to load up $user's message history, you do this:

     mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `character` WHERE Who='y' AND User='$user'");
         while ($row = @mysql_fetch_array($queryb))
    {
    $messages=$row["messages"];
    }

Take a closer look at this. You build up a query to extract $user's message history, you fire that query off to mysql, but you may as well not have - you're not doing anything with the returned value. It just disappears.

What you do use is the value returned from $queryb. But what is $queryb? Look further up in the code...

$queryb = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `character` WHERE Who='y' AND User='$the_person'"); 

This is why $the_person's history ends up overwriting $user's.