[RESOLVED] Using Images from MqSQL

[Dada78]

I have been doing some reading and searching about putting images into MySQL. It looks like the easiest method from what I have gather is just to put the root path in the column instead of an actuall image. That does sound like a easier method, so my questiond is. Do you just put the url of the image in the database and lets say I wanted to add a link to it it would be something like.

<a href='$URL'> $img</a>

Where $img would be the link to the image or is thier another way to do this. I would think I would also need to assign the id to it as well so it is specific to a certain row in the table correct?

Or would it be

$img_path = ['img'];
          echo "<a href='$URL'>$img</a><BR>"; 

This is a sloppy example but it will give you a general idea of what I am trying to do here.

http://www.texascampingforum.com/2006/index.php?page=parks/results

On the far right you will see BOOK NOW button. I want to be able to display that button with the corresponding URL to the parks resveration page. I don't want to have a button on every row as some parks won't have a reservation page. So when I get my search working it will display the button with the corresponding URL show it be available as well as other info.

-Thanks

[bpat1434]

How can you differentiate between bookable and not-bookable? Do you have a flag in the database that says so?

[Dada78]

Yes I do, I have a column that has the URL for each parks reservations page.

http://www.texascampingforum.com/2006/parks/test1.php

As you can see if the park has a reservations page it will display a link, BUT I want it to be a image that is a clickable link instead of text. Am I on the right track or is their something else I need to do?

-Thanks

[samudasu]

Personally i wouldn't store the button image in the database at all. Supposing that you're using the reservations column to store the url of the campground website, you could do something like this: mysql example

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	if ($row['reservations'] == "") {
		$reservations = ' ';
	} else {
		$reservations = "<a href=\"$row['facilities']\"><img src=\"button.gif\"></a>";
	}
	print "$row['park'] - $row['location'] - $row['type'] - $row['facilities'] - $row['region'] - $reservations<br />";
}

[Dada78]

Yes that is how I was planning on doing it. I wasn't going to store the actually image in the database just the root path to where the image is. Is that what you are referring to? What I don't quite understand is would I put the full root path in the DB on the row for the park that has the reservation? That's kist what I am unclear of is what exactly do I put in the DB for the image.

-Thanks

[samudasu]

Small mistake on the previous post...
"<a href=\"$row['$facilities']\"><img src=\"button.gif\"></a>";
should have been
"<a href=\"$row['reservations']\"><img src=\"button.gif\"></a>";

If i'm getting you right, you want to have a button image link for campgrounds that have a website and if they don't have a website then you just want to have a blank space. Am i correct?

So what i'm saying is you don't need to include the image path or anything about the image in the database. More about this later...

By looking at your page
http://www.texascampingforum.com/2006/index.php?page=parks/results, the reservations column will store the address of the parks reservation page. If the park doesn't have an address then i'm going to assume you will just store an empty value in the database for that particular park.

The code below checks the reservation column. If it's empty then it will just print a blank space "&nbsp;". If there is a value then it will print a button image linking to the park reservation website.

    if ($row['reservations'] == "") {
        $reservations = ' ';
    } else {
        $reservations = "<a href=\"$row['$reservations']\"><img src=\"button.gif\"></a>";
    } 

So if this is what you want to do then you don't need to store the image path for (button.gif) in the database. Just put it where you put the rest of your graphics. If you want to change the button later, you'll only have to change button.gif to a different name.
I can't think of any good reason why you'd need to have any image data in the database unless you want to have a different button image for each park.

[Dada78]

Yes that makes perfect sense and that's exactly how I want it. Only thing I am not clear of is where I place that code above at. Would it go in the same file that is outputed the query like this.

<?
include("dbinfo.inc.php");

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");
$query="SELECT * FROM parks";
$result=mysql_query($query);

$num=mysql_numrows($result);

mysql_close();


echo "<b><center>State Parks In Texas</center></b><br><br>";

$i=0;
while ($i < $num) {

$type=mysql_result($result,$i,"type");
$park_name=mysql_result($result,$i,"park_name");
$city=mysql_result($result,$i,"city");
$URL=mysql_result($result,$i,"URL"); 
$reservations=mysql_result($result,$i,"reservations"); 

if ($row['reservations'] == "") {
        $reservations = '&nbsp;';
    } else {
        $reservations = "<a href=\"$row['$reservations']\"><img src=\"images/book_now1.gif\"></a>";
    } 
echo "<b><font color='#FF0000'>This is a:</font></b> $type&nbsp;&nbsp;<b><font color='#FF0000'>Name:</font></b><a href='$URL'> $park_name</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<b><font color='#FF0000'>Located in:</font></b> $city&nbsp;&nbsp;$reservations<br /><br />";

$i++;
}

?>

-Thanks

[samudasu]

That part would go in the while loop. To simplify thing a little more i would do this:
Once you get it working then add the html markup

<? include("dbinfo.inc.php"); 

mysql_connect('localhost',$username,$password); 
mysql_select_db($database) or die( 'Unable to select database'); 
$query="SELECT * FROM parks"; 
$result=mysql_query($query);

echo "<b><center>State Parks In Texas</center></b><br><br>";
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $type = $row['type'];
    $park_name = $row['park_name'];
    $city = $row['city'];
    $URL = $row['URL'];
    $reservations = $row['reservations']; 

if ($reservations == "") { 
    $reservations = '&nbsp;'; 
} else { 
    $reservations = "<a href=\"$reservations\"><img src=\"images/book_now1.gif\"></a>"; 
} 
print "This is a: $type - Name: <a href=\"$URL\">$park_name</a> - Located in: $city - $reservations<br />"; 
} 

?>

[Dada78]

I am not sure why this isn't working as it looks pretty much the same with the exception of the images being inserted. It shows that a image is suppose to be there but no image.

http://www.texascampingforum.com/2006/parks/test1.php

I have tried to play with the root path but it won't allow me to put the full path in. Also another thing I noticed is the URL is correct for the park name. Granted the first one Abilene is the only one I have a URL for in the DB, but it's not linking the correct URL. Now the URL for where the reservation image is suppose to be is correct.

-Thanks

[samudasu]

The reason the image isn't showing up is because you don't have the correct path set for it. Here is where you have the image set http://www.texascampingforum.com/2006/parks/images/book_now.gif

The real path for the image is here.
http://www.texascampingforum.com/2006/images/book_now1.gif

So change it to one of the following: <img src=\"../images/book_now1.gif\">
or <img src=\"/2006/images/book_now1.gif\">

Now you need to find out why URL is empty. Are you sure the name of the table in your database is URL in all caps? For some reason $row['URL'] is coming up empty. Could it be $row['url']????
If you still need help figuring it out, show the column names and 1 row from your database so we can see exactly what you need.

[Dada78]

Thank you, works great now. I thought I had tired it with 2006 in front but I guess I left something out, it was late though. Also it was lower casr url. I don't know why I thought it was all upper case,

-Thanks Again