www.website.org as php application

dolphinsnot

hello all.

i am currently working on a php/mysql driven website that uses a set of 6 database tables and 6 .php3 files to create logical divisions of content.

each of the .php3 files has the same name as a db table (main.php3, main), and builds pages in those subsections by grabbing the page name from the url (main.php3?page=index).

the way i've done this is by using substr($path_info 1, -5) and URLs shaped like: www.website.org/main/index.html, which does the same thing as www.website.org/main.php3?page=index

the trouble with this is that i have 6 identical .php3 files that only differ in the [tablename] (SELECT * FROM [tablename] WHERE page="$page")

i'd like to only have one .php3 file that extracts 2 variables from my URL, and exists as the base directory of my site, so that when a user comes to www.website.org they are automatically using www.website.org/website.php3.

the URL i would like to stay the same (www.website.org/main/index.html), and i'd like to just use something like:

$vars = substr($PATH_INFO, 1, -5);

$slash = "/";
$var_array = split($slash, $vars);

$table = $var_array[0];
$page = $var_array[1];

and then have my SELECT statement read something like:

SELECT * FROM $table WHERE page="$page"

i just don't know how to make www.website.org be my master php app. i've done some research into altering my .htaccess file, but haven't found a solution.

is anyone able to help??

thanks,

-dolphinsnot

Anon

Hello DolphinSnot,

What a name!

Just a question. Why not put the code you need in http://www.website.org/index.php?

Normally webservers that are running PHP are configured to start the index.php files automatically. That means that when someone calls http://www.website.org the server gives them or rather runs the index.php file automatically (make sure there is no index.html in the root cause this file will be served instead of the index.php) and serves up the page.

Hope I could help.

Scott

dolphinsnot

hi. thanks for your help.

our website is hosted through some uber-server-farm out west, and i'm not able to have an effect on php configuration.

i hadn't tried just using index.php before becuase i'm currently testing my php site redesign in the same directory as the existing 1000page static .html site, which has an index.html file in it.

i tried creating a folder called php and put index.php3 in there. when i tried to call www.website.org/php/main/index.html i just got an error saying 'not found: http://www.website.org/php/main/index.html.

when i keyed in just www.website.org/php/, index.php3 ran just fine, except it couldn't display any content because it didn't have any content-related variables to work with.

any suggestions? perhaps i just need to get on the phone with tech-support at my server-farm.

thanks again,

-dolphinsnot

Anon

Hey DolphinSnot,

My answer:

DolphinSnot wrote:

our website is hosted through some uber-server-farm out west, and i'm not able to have an effect on php configuration.

i hadn't tried just using index.php before becuase i'm currently testing my php site redesign in the same directory as the existing 1000page static .html site, which has an index.html file in it.

If you created a directory /php why did you call http://www.website.org/php/main/index.html?
This page obviously can't be found because it doesn't exist. And where did /main come from?
The call should have been: http://www.website.org/php/index.php

when i keyed in just www.website.org/php/, index.php3 ran just fine, except it couldn't display any content because it didn't have any content-related variables to work with.

What do you mean with content-related variables?

any suggestions? perhaps i just need to get on the phone with tech-support at my server-farm.

I don't think the tech-support will help you too much on this one, because the problem doesn't
lie with the server but rather your programming.
Can you post the code from your index.php script? Or better email it to me. webtroniks@yahoo.de

Scott

dolphinsnot

below is my code for index.php. it works fine when i have a series of 6 .php3 files that all have the $table variable plugged in manually (main.php3 for table 'main'), but i want to use the following code as just one file that uses the var $table.

#!/usr/local/bin/php

<?php

//extract varaible $table and $page from URL

$vars = substr($PATH_INFO, 1, -5);

$slash = "/";
$var_array = split($slash, $vars);

$table = $var_array[0];
$page= $var_array[1];

//mysql connect stuff

$db = mysql_connect("server", "user", "pass");
mysql_select_db("Database", $db);

//notice: this is where the $table content-variable lives (the 'main' in www.website.org/main/index.html). i'm using 6 tables to subdivide content
//this is also the first occurrence of the $page content-variable (the 'index' in www.website.org/main/index.html)

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table where page=\"$page\"", $db);

//i'm using template.inc from PHPLIB with a single .ihtml file

include "templates/template.inc";

//set up all variables for use with template

$title = mysql_result($result,$page,"title");
$expires = mysql_result($result,$page,"expires");
$robots = mysql_result($result,$page,"robots");
$description = mysql_result($result,$page,"description");
$keywords = mysql_result($result,$page,"keywords");
$content = mysql_result($result,$page,"content");
$rollfile = 'includes/rollover.js';
$rp = fopen( $rollfile, 'r' );
$rollover = fread( $rp, filesize( $rollfile ) );
fclose( $rp );
$navfile = 'quicknav.js';
$np = fopen( $navfile, 'r' );
$quicknav = fread( $np, filesize( $navfile ) );
fclose( $np );

//do the template hole-plugging

// create a template object named $t

$t = new Template("templates/");

// set MyFileHandle = our template file

$t->set_file("website","website.ihtml");

// set template variable some_color = $my_color value

$t->set_var("page_title",$title);
$t->set_var("page_expires",$expires);
$t->set_var("page_robots",$robots);
$t->set_var("page_description",$description);
$t->set_var("page_keywords",$keywords);
$t->set_var("page_content",$content);
$t->set_var("roll_over",$rollover);
$t->set_var("quick_nav",$quicknav);

// set template variable MyOutput = parsed file

$t->parse("weboutput","website");

$t->p("weboutput");

again, this all works just fine, and if i had it set up to use a simple URL like www.website.org/index.php3?table=main&page=index, it would run like a charm. i'm being stubborn though because i'd like to have my site be indexable by search engines that don't support ? or & in the URL.

the above code should work with www.website.org/main/index.html as URL, and i still think the solution may lie within the apache configuration somewhere.

thanks for your help,

-dolphinsnot

Anon

Ok,

Your script needs an if statement at the beginning which would check to see if the URL contains $page or $table. If it doesn't then set $page to the first row in the table ($table) which would contain the content for your "INDEX" page. (If that doesn't make sense let me know)
As for running the script under the .html extension you can set up your server (Apache) to parse html files. But, why?

Check out also:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20000526.php3

Tim Perdue explains how he makes php web sites search engine friendly.

Scott

dolphinsnot

well, i've figured it out. i was trying to save an extra step, but realised it's just not going to be possible.

everything works great with my script named site.php3, and the URL set up like:

www.website.org/site/main/index.html

i was trying to avoid putting /site/ in there, but realised it's difficult, neurotic, silly, and futile to try to do so.

the reason that i have '.html' at the end of the URL is simply because our users are mostly upper-middle aged conservative non-computer-savvy people that would become disoriented if the pages still didn't have that '.html' at the end of the URL, and i like the idea of having a single script that pretends to be 1000 .html pages.

thank you for the suggestion on adding the if statement to test for $page and $table. i can now make the script default to the main page if there are no variables to work with. most helpful, indeed.

i've read that article on search engines and the revisited article. they're both great.

thanks so much for helping me get this all straight. problem solved.

-dolphinsnot