Expanding Horizons

Alastor

Greetings.

I'm a newbie, obviously. I found your boards after getting frustrated with looking for some help with a project I'm working on. I read over some of your threads and it looked like this might be the place I needed to be in order to learn more about what I'm doing with PHP.

For reference, I'm not a programmer. I'm a high school History teacher actually. I fart around on the web for fun, and I've always been interested in web pages and other neat doodads that entertain people.

Recently I've built a number of web sites to help me learn HTML. I'd like to think I did a pretty good job, and one of the web sites is actually pretty large with lots of different skills evident. I even integrated a couple of PHP and Java scripts, which I made very minor modifications to.

Now I'd like to try my hand at learning PHP. Since I don't do this for a living, having fun is key to my willingness. I've decided I'd like to try to build an RPG in PHP. One sort of like Urban Dead.

I realize that PHP may not be the best language for me to do this in, but that's where my ability level is and I like to approach things with a realistic expectation.

I really know almost nothing about PHP though, so even getting started is completely beyond me at the moment.

My hope is that I can ask a bunch of questions here and try to learn what I can to get something started, and from there perhaps pique the interest of someone that might be willing to act as a mentor to me.

And yes, I have some starter questions.

In order to learn how to build a game, I thought I'd take a look at one. I downloaded a game called Dragon Knight and I am getting ready to try to upload it it my domain and start playing it.

I figured I should know how to play it before I bother trying to figure out the code that makes it work. Makes sense, no?

Anyway, the instructions say I need to alter the data in the config.php file. No sweat. I've worked with these before. I have a set of VB boards and I'm pretty good with them, so I've tinkered with configs before.

What I don't know however, is how to find the following information:


<?php // config.php :: Low-level app/database variables.

$dbsettings = Array(
        "server"        => "localhost",     // MySQL server name. (Default: localhost)
        "user"          => "",              // MySQL username.
        "pass"          => "",              // MySQL password.
        "name"          => "",              // MySQL database name.
        "prefix"        => "dk",            // Prefix for table names. (Default: dk)
        "secretword"    => "");             // Secret word used when hashing information for cookies.

?>

So I guess my question is... How do I find this information, and how do I input it such that this config file will work when I put it on my server?

NogDog

server: usually 'localhost' is okay, but check your web hosting account info in case you need to specify another MySQL host name (or IP address).

user: the MySQL database login name you want to use. This is totally dependent on what you have set up on your host. Generally you want to use a DB user with the minimum of database privileges needed for your application to do what it needs, i.e. you may just need read, insert, and update privileges, or you might also need delte privileges, but you probably don't want create or drop privileges (unless this is an install script that is going to create the database tables for you?).

pass: The database connection password used by the above user

name: The database name, which you will have had to create separately (likely via PHPMyadmin or your web host's control panel interface.

The prefix and secret word values can be whatever you want them to be. (Just don't change them once you get things installed and running.)

Alastor

That doesn't seem nearly as complicated as it sounded in my head before your explanation.

Thank you very much.

Alastor

Heh. I tried to get into my server to create a new user for this domain.

The reality is, my web host sucks. I can't get it to let me create users because the page keeps giving me an error.

My web host really sucks. I'd call him but I called him a week ago about something that should have taken an hour and he never returned my call. This after he failed to contact me regarding three other incidents.

I guess before I even start on this, I need to get a real host.

I am totally lost, and already frustrated. I know nothing about what I'm doing and I've never taken a single programming class in my life. I managed to teach myself HTML and how to use web sites and such, but that was a real nightmare.

Now I'm just totally frustrated and I haven't even begun my project in an attempt to learn how to work with PHP.

I'd ask for suggestions, but I can pretty much figure out I need a new host on my own. I've even found a couple that I am looking at. I guess I should start there.

I guess I mostly just wanted to vent.

NogDog

Just to be sure: you were trying to create a database user, not another login account, right?

Alastor

NogDog;10977514 wrote:
Just to be sure: you were trying to create a database user, not another login account, right?

Um.... Good question...

I don't actually know the answer to that now that you ask. I think I better check and find a better explanation before I answer factually.

Thanks for posing the question.

Alastor

I checked. I don't even understand enough about what I'm doing to be able to answer your question.

I'm not sure what to do from here. I guess I need to find someone in real life to come show me the basics, because I'm lost.

Thanks for your help. Apologies if I've wasted your time. I'll be back when I can at least answer your question.

NogDog

I'll bet there are more than a few of your high school students who could help. Just look for the quiet, nerdy ones who actually look forward to match classes. 🙂

johanafm

Also, if you're doing this simply to learn, why not install php and a web server on your own computer. It shouldn't be that hard, and this way you can configure your system any way you need. If you one day have something that you want people to be able to use, then you can find a host, and by then you will also know what they need to provide for your stuff to work.

Alastor

johanafm;10977532 wrote:
Also, if you're doing this simply to learn, why not install php and a web server on your own computer. It shouldn't be that hard, and this way you can configure your system any way you need. If you one day have something that you want people to be able to use, then you can find a host, and by then you will also know what they need to provide for your stuff to work.

Not a horrible idea. I'll explore that a bit more in the near future. Thank you.

Meanwhile... I realized that I have a config.php file - it's in my VB message boards. I have all the information on that that I need to set this config file up.

As a result of this epiphany (and I use that term generously as I'm sure this is a no-brainer to you guys) is that I checked my site settings.

I am allowed one database on this domain. I have a database for my VB message boards.

Can I use the same database for this game I want to tinker with, or is that just a bad idea?

laserlight

Alastor wrote:
Can I use the same database for this game I want to tinker with, or is that just a bad idea?

You can use the same database. VB probably already prefixes table names with some prefix; you could use a different prefix for your game's database tables.

Alastor

laserlight;10977554 wrote:
You can use the same database. VB probably already prefixes table names with some prefix; you could use a different prefix for your game's database tables.

But in so doing, I'd be running a risk of a major mess if I accidentally mixed the two, wouldn't I?

If I'm not careful or if I'm ignorant (as opposed to stupid), I could be playing with fire, no?

I ask this because I feel pretty ignorant about this stuff right now and I don't really want to tempt the hands of fate.

bradgrafelman

Alastor wrote:
If I'm not careful or if I'm ignorant (as opposed to stupid), I could be playing with fire, no?

Actually, you'd probably have to be less than ignorant in this case. Unless you were playing around with 'DROP DATABASE' or something like that, you probably won't have to worry about accidentally getting both the prefix and the name of a VB table correct and somehow modifying/damaging that table. This is assuming, of course, that you know what the VB table prefix is and can design your other application(s) around avoiding that prefix.

However, if you're just playing around, by all means - take a backup of your database beforehand. If you do somehow manage to break VB, all you'd need to do is restore from the backup and figure out what went wrong.

dalecosp

Digging up buried treasure, am I.

For anyone who happens to read this, know ye hereby that modern vBulletin installations do not necessarily use a prefix for data tables, so you could very easily shoot yourself in the foot (or whatever body part is exposed in your part of the globe) by doing something like "drop table user", or "insert into user values('foo','bar') ... etc.