Large Link-Ranked-Database-script not working?

execute

Hello, i am not sure if its just a parse error , but it doesnt say theres a parse error, and i cannot find anything wrong with the script. But when i start it, nothing shows up, although it use to before but after some parse errors i fixed it and now the whole script won't show. Just a white blank page which i have tried days trying to figure out why.

The code i made is out of experimentation so , when i made it i have no idea if it will work or not. So i prolly have hundreds of errors. And my experience is just 2 books and using php for a few years but thats about it. But there is probably a lot of things that i am doing completely wrong.

Thanks for your help in advance...

About the Script:
The code below , shows a list from a database, if there are no records of links, it will show an error message, otherwise it will display in colorized rows all the records from the database. ON the SAME page the user may add a link, and edit his link, and once he adds it, he must activate, and then it will be added to the database. The Links database shows a banner, and a title, and description, and has a built in, hit AND vote system, and it automatically ranks them accordingly.

it's too big a code to post it right in here. So you can view it at:
http://www.designplanet.biz/dax/linkposter.txt

Just copy it and paste it in your code-editor in order to view it in color scheme.

Thanks

cmancone

lol I hate to break it to you, but that is a REALLY long script to expect someone to read over and debug. It's the sort of script that is hard to debug unless you're the person who wrote it, which would be you. Here's my suggestion. Break it up. That is always a good idea. If nothing else, put some of it into functions loaded from a different page, just so it is easy to read. But my biggest suggestion is to break this big script up into 3 different files, which link to eachother. It will look exactly the same from the user point of view, but will be WAY easier for debugging. Try breaking it up like this:

Page 1:
shows a list from a database, if there are no records of links, it will show an error message, otherwise it will display in colorized rows all the records from the database.
Page 2:
the user may add a link, and edit his link, and once he adds it, he must activate, and then it will be added to the database.
Page 3:
The Links database shows a banner, and a title, and description, and has a built in, hit AND vote system, and it automatically ranks them accordingly

if anything is needed for all three pages, put it in an include file. Really though, split it up. It will make debugging much, much easier. Then, you will probably discover which section works and which doesn't. Maybe then someone here can help you out more (I don't know, maybe someone will anyway).

execute

i tried all that, still can't figure it out. Either way, i would love to view a long script from someone else and read it up, just for the sake of perhaps learning something from it...

I broke them into parts, but i can't exactly figure it out. And is there a way to test an include or something? But the problem is there is NO ERROR message or any parse error... Thats whats confusing

cmancone

That would be confusing... The next best thing to do when troubleshooting is to put a whole bunch of print commands throughout your script, all of which output something different. That way you can tell what parts of your script are actually getting executed.

Here is an example, of how I print out a list of entries, which alternate colors. As you can probably tell, this is part of a more complicated program, so it refers to various variables not otherwise mentioned. But it should be pretty clear. In this script, I don't directly print anything, it all gets stored in a string which is sent to PrintLowerBorder() which prints it out in a nice looking box.

if ( !$action )
{
	// count the number of total entries (this script has a navigation bar that needs to know)
	$qresult = mysql_query( "SELECT COUNT(*) from $table WHERE author='$logid'" );
	$myrow = mysql_fetch_row( $qresult );
	$num = $myrow[0];
	if ( !$num )
		quit( "No entries found.", "$PHP_SELF" );

// set default start point for navbar
if ( !$st || $st <0 || $st > $num )
	$st = 0;

// print navbar
PrintLowerBorder( print_navbar( $num, $st ), $primarycolor );

// on to the important stuff - this selects the actual information
$qresult = mysql_query( "SELECT Name,date,id FROM $table WHERE author='$logid' ORDER BY Date DESC LIMIT $st,$len" );

$mainstring .= "<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"0\" align=\"center\" class=\"main\">\n";
$mainstring .= "<tr align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"$color1\">\n<td><b>Name</b></td>\n<td><b>Date</b></td>\n<td colspan='4'><b>Actions</b></td>\n</tr>\n";

// $i is used to keep track of the color for the row
$i = 0;
while ( $myrow = mysql_fetch_row( $qresult ) )
{
	// put data in convienent variables
	$text = $myrow[0];
	$timestamp = $myrow[1];
	$date = date( "F j, Y", $timestamp );
	$id = $myrow[2];

	if ( $i )
		$color = $color1;
	else
		$color = $color2;

	// print out entry
	$mainstring .= "<tr align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"$color\">\n";
	$mainstring .= "<td>$text</td>\n";
	$mainstring .= "<td>$date</td>\n";
	$mainstring .= "<td><a href=\"$PHP_SELF?action=modify&modify=$id\">Modify</a></td>\n";
	$mainstring .= "<td><a href=\"$PHP_SELF?action=delete&delete=$id\">Delete</a></td>\n";
	$mainstring .= "<td><a href=\"images.php?action=upload&gallery=$id&wizard=1\">Upload</a></td>\n";
	$mainstring .= "<td><a href=\"imagefiles.php?gallery=$id\">Images</a></td>\n";
	$mainstring .= "</tr>\n\n";

	// change $i (to change the color)
	++$i;
	if ( $i > 1 )
		$i = 0;
}
$mainstring .= "</table>\n\n";

// print out the text
PrintLowerBorder( $mainstring, $primarycolor );
}

Unfortunately, I don't have handy any script for the rest of what you are doing. You might want to consider just building it again (scary, I know, but sometimes worth it).