Random, hyperlink and onLoad syntax

[Anon]

Could someone offer some help on the issues below?

1. How do you randomly select a row from a table?

2. Is it a good way to create links from a text column by saving the text as below?:

text... blah blah <a href="file.php"> click here </a> continue yak yak blah blah...

Is there any other way of doing it?

3. Can PHP submit/query a database automatically everytime a page is loaded? e.g. increment a counter in the database to track page hits. How is it done?

Thanks guys...

[[deleted]]

1. Depends on the tpye of database (obviously)
   For mysql it's:
   SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 1;

2. Sure, why would this be bad?

3. 'can a php script do something with a database when you load the script'. Well what do you think? 🙂

[Anon]

Hey Vince, thanks again.

Regarding the hyperlinks, if I had a column consisting of only URLs (http://something.com) can I get it to print the column without using the method I mentioned above? Or do I still have to do it like this:

print ("<a href=/"");
echo ($aRow['url']);
print ("/">");
echo ($aRow['name']);
print ("</a>");

Secondly, how do I get a page to automatically submit a hidden form when the page is being loaded?

Thanks and hear from you soon again 🙂

[Anon]

1.
echo '<a href="'.$aRow["url"].'">'.$aRow["name"].'</a>';

2. "hidden" ? as in input type="hidden" ?
   well, if you $secretvar = $REMOTE_ADDR; and later add the $secretvar into a database (example), sure.
   A form is a form. Something the user must edit, and submit, so no, a hidden form transmission is not possible. (Like my CC#)

Some more explaination could help perhaps.

// Thomasson

[Anon]

another idea on 1 again...

function showurl($a,$b) { echo '<a href="'.$a.'">'.$b.'</a>'; }

then later on the page:
showurl("http://php.net/manual/","RTFM");
showurl("http://php.net/manual/","RTFM Again to be safe...");

// Thomasson

[Anon]

Hiya, thanks for your suggestions.

I basically would like the page to automatically alter a particular field of a table whenever it is loaded e.g. to work as a page hits counter.

Any simple way of doing this?

Thanks in advance...

[Anon]

One way to make your stuff more readable is to pick either echo or print (they do more or less the same thing) and then stick with it throughout rather than alternating between them.

&nbsp;&nbsp;echo "<a href=\"";
&nbsp;&nbsp;echo $aRow['url'];
&nbsp;&nbsp;echo "\">";
&nbsp;&nbsp;echo $aRow['name'];
&nbsp;&nbsp;echo "</a>";

But also, keep in mind that echo (and print) can write any kind of string expression, so you don't have to do it in little tiny pieces unless you really prefer that for some reason.

&nbsp;&nbsp;echo '<a href="' . $aRow['url'] . '">' . $aRow['name'] . '</a>';

Note that escapes use the backslash, not the forward slash. But note, too, that by using single quotes (when you don't need variable interpolation or escaped special chars such as \n) you can write strings more simply by using single quotes (because then you can just say " instead of \".)

[Anon]

Yeap... got that. 🙂 Thanks.

[Anon]

Could you please tell me why doesn't this work? I do not get an error out of it but it doens't seem to change the data in the database. How should I do it instead?

  if (mysql_num_rows($rResult)>0) 
  { 
    // Process the query result
    while ($aRow = mysql_fetch_array($rResult, MYSQL_ASSOC)) 
    { 
      $sql = "UPDATE table SET var=var+1";
      echo ($aRow['var']);

    } 

Thanks!