Ninjakreborn

This is my original site, I had built I have completely developed it, and all I do now is update it occasionally ad stuff and use it as a testing grounds. advice or comments would be appreciated. [a href=\"http://www.freelancebusinessman.com\" target=\"_blank\"]Freelance Businessman[/a]

I wanted some advice on this, I am building a site for a client, and I will be running all my sites through here, for criticism because as some advice I may not take, a lot of advice people have given me in the past helped me turn shitty sites into something work it, the address is [a href=\"http://www.moondancedesign.com\" target=\"_blank\"]Moon Dance Design[/a] I redid something she already had that was horrible and turned it into this, is this look good, or does it need surgery, good bad comments. Thanks.

[b]SOLVED-Outsourced it to someone from the forums, thanks for all the attempts at helping[/b] I really need help with this, I have a list of 50 .txt files that a client needs converted to xml, I am doing it in dreamweaver, a lot of stuff I did with find and replace, but I need to find a way to automatically close the tags. I can't do it all by hand it would take me months and he needs it by the end of the week, plus I have 4 projects I am sitting on I need to start on this week, I just need a quick way to end the tags as well, is there a way to do this automatically or a editor out there that will close them all automatically.

isn't that a bad idea, for security purposes though. I didn't think it would be at first, but I have heard some really bad things about using register_globals, and the bad thing is, I had this error message with OC Commerce, and Zen Shopping cart, and there 2 of the most popular that is what is confusing me.

I am having a major problem, I know enough about php to know register globals is a security issue, I tried installing os commerce, and zen shopping cart, one then the other, when I try to go to the admin area I get [!--quoteo--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Server Requirement Error: register_globals is disabled in your PHP configuration. This can be enabled in your php.ini configuration file or in the .htaccess file in your catalog directory. [/quote] and I won't use something I have to enable register globals on, that is not good, I don't trust either of those if that's the case, and they are popular so I am assuming something is wrong, any ideas.

thanks I have been with javascript for awhile, but only studying, form validation, things like that no major applications.

I will keep that in mind, for hte most part, on major applications I will go third party, when I have time, or for fun I will build them myself.

So even utilizing 3rd party scripts, I will still(throughout my career) get to do plenty with programming, and things like that.

Thanks I will look at that, I appreciate the help.

But then that makes me have to ask. you and other people on here, who develop with php. What do you do that makes use of php. The reason I see for php, is creating dynamic websites right, creating programs, and web applications, guestbooks, forums, newsletters, and things of that nature. Am I wrong. If not, then you go out and get an application say for everything, someone needs a newsletter-3rd party script, guestbook-3rd party script, forum-3rd party script, shopping cart-3rd party script. Then what else is there left to build, other than using includes in a fancy manner, to make a site seem cooler, what other things can you do with php. If you wanted the time-3rd party script, if you want a detection-3rd party scripts. I am trying to understand at this point, what I should develop on my own when it comes to php programming, and what I should rely on 3rd party scripts for. When someone speaks of building a massive database driven website, with an entire shopping cart extension, does that mean that 90% of there site was created with working with some preinstalls. This is what I am trying to understand now as a whole.

I have a question I want to ask people in general. Advice so to speak to try and figure out somethign I want to do. I see a lot of stuff out there relating to PHP Pre-Installs. There 3rd party scripts, of special programs to avoid you having to do it yourself. For instance. Shopping carts, message boards, forums, guestbooks, mailing list managers, chatrooms, and other things that are created so people can download them. I know that creating a basic mailing list takes like 1 day, to add more features it takes more. I am faced with a project now, I am a web designer/coder/programmer. I love programming, I have installed Zen Shopping cart, but then I start to think, if I decided to build this entire shopping cart from scratch how long would it take me. Could I finish in a few weeks, working on it part time, or is building a shopping cart something that will take me months, and months, to finish. I like the preinstalls, but I need something where I can carry the data throughout my pages, and wire it in freely to my clients gallery pages. I like the thrill as well of programming, so I am wondering, if I take the time to start building it, how long to build a basic shopping cart, wired through the website www.moondancedesign.com, and is just build for that purpose. How long will that take for me to build. It will only be accepting paypal anyway so no need for major credit card processing, and tax won't be included, so that is not an issue either. So what do you think, is this something I can do, I had some people help me on php freaks before, someone set down and told me not how to, but the general steps needed to build a mailing list, in 1 day I built the form, the mailing list, the area where they log in and send out the emails, the database, and have it record and remove email addresses. It took me 2 days of fiddling with it, and it was the most fun I have had in my entire life, I know that it is a BIG issue in dealing with security, and I want to try to make it secure, but I am still thinking of doing it myself, any advice, or comments, or answers would be greatly appreciated, thanks again in advance.

I wasn't really speaking about a specific section of code, I was trying to learn for knowledge purposes, for when I start doing major applications, more of, just a general question.

Ok this is what I am trying to figure out, I don't think you can use break when it's with if, elseif, and other like control structures. What I am wanting to do, is come up with another way for validation, I am trying new things. I wanted to put all the form fields into an array and compare them all the a blank value but it didn't work out, so now I am wanting to run together a series of if statements. and for each one taht doesn't match have it say "You have n ot filled in the first name field" "you have not filled in the last name field" ex cetera but it keeps checking the first one, and exiting the script, I want it to check them all for blank values, and return ALL the messages for those, THEN if it doesn't pick up any errors when checking through the fields, then I want it to check for the email and verify email and see if there the same, seperately. IF it doesn't pick that one up THEN move on to start doing my processing, and working with my database, excetera. But I don't know how to make it do a set of things, then move on to another set IF all those are not found. This is what is confusing me.

I am trying to set all my form field values as an array, and test them all for blank spaces at once, but I am unsure how to put them all into an array. I tried [code] <?php $formfields = array("$_POST['firstname']"=>1, "$_POST['lastname']=>2, "$_POST['emailaddress']=>3, "$_POST['verifyemail']"=>4); foreach ($formfields == ''){ print('One of the fields have been left blank, Please go back and correct this'); } ?> [/code] but I got this [!--quoteo--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /home/freelan4/public_html/programmingplayground/php/mailinglist/dbmanagerprocessor.php on line 2 [/quote] and line 2, was during the middle of me setting my array. I caught one error, missed some quotations marks but it still gives the same error.

bump

I can't understand this now, but thanks for the help on monday I will go back over all of this, pick up the pieces and start putting it all together, thanks to these examples I think next week I can gain a deep working knowledge of databasing, thanks for the help again, I have created database before, but for fun, never using them through php, I will work with this, thanks again for the help, if I run into any more questions about this specifically I will ask them in the same post, thanks again for the help.

ok thanks again for the help, all my questions have been answered here so if someone wants to close this I am done with this posting.

Whoah actually that was a major help, I won't be able to put all of this into practice until monday, I will be starting on this monday, and trying to see if I can get it to work, I commented out my form for now, I will work on it starting monday, I am deleting it afterwards but I wanted to learn the basics of Mysql-PHP, so I can start doing databasing better, after that I am going to rebuild it 4-5 times until I master the basic aspects. I will start working with all of this on monday, if I have any more questions about this specific stuff, I will ask on monday after I test this out, I will use this same post, I really appreciate the help so far, thanks alot. I do have one more question, that I was wondering about, I understand this, I won't get a grasp on it until I play with it monday but I understand it, what I don't understand is what happens if I have a form for a mailing list, they have 2 submit buttons subscribe, and unsubscribe, I still want them both to validate, but I want subscribe specifically to add the emailaddress, firstname, lastname, and I want unsubscribe to remove the emailaddress, firstname, lastname from the database IF it is present, but if it's not present say that they were not subscribed. What I don't understand is how to get 2 actions onto 1 form, because I know I can send the information to a page, and ahve it validate and process, or database or whatever the information, but I don't understand how to get the unsubscribe to still validate and if unsubscribe was pressed instead of intering the information it removes the information from the database, supposing that the information was present.

I did not intend to post here so I reposted in php, It was an accident.

perfect, the mysql, or sql commenting I was referring to is something I read in a book called php in a nutshell here is an excerpt from the book. [!--quoteo--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--] Before you start diving into the world of SQL, just a short note about commenting your SQL code. In SQL, there are a number of ways to comment your code, of which the most popular are /* */ and #, both of which are seen in PHP. Of the two, # is more popular - like PHP, it comments to the end of the line. Author's Note: I personally find # good for SQL because I never use it in PHP scripts - it makes the distinct between complex SQL queries and PHP code that little bit more obvious. Choose what fits you best. [/quote] That is the area I saw that information on, and I was trying to figure out why he was speaking of commenting the sql, I didn't see the point that is why I was asking.

ok but I don't get it, what's the difference in those 2 validation methods, I was using this one, so I can chain them together in a huge if, ifelse, else construct, that way it runs down the line. I am still confused about the mysql intry. I just do all the validation then below that on the same page do all of my mysql work. IS there a way to store the mysql information in another page, and if I do that on the same page, will it validate it, and then if it passes validation do the database work, or will it do the validation and that at the same time, meaning will it validate and come back that it wasn't filled in correctly and still pop the information in the database.

I have created a php form, I am playing around trying to create a mailing list, the question I have is, when I create a form, with 2 submit buttons subscribe and unsubscribe there are three field intries emailaddress firstname lastname as well as 3 column's in 1 table, out of my database emailaddress firstname lastname I want to have if they fill in the form(it's already validate with javascript and php) How do I get it to where, the subscribe button adds there email first and last name to the database but if they unsubscribe it removes there emailaddress, last name and first name from the database, if it's present. I also have to figure out how to get a mysql page added into the php script, for instance I was told to create a php page with all my mysql stuff, connecting to the database, adding, taking out the data, ex cetera, and to have it included in another page that does the validation. So i have my general.js file validate it, then the mailinglist.php validate it server side, with an if else statement [code] <?php if ($_POST['emailaddress'] == "") { print('I am sorry please go back and fill in the email address field properly'); }elseif ($_POST['firstname'] == "") { print('I am sorry please go back and fill in the first name correctly'); }elseif ($_POST['lastname'] == "") { print('I am sorry please go back and fill in the last name correctly'); }else { return true; include(/home/freelan4/public_html/cgi-bin/mailinglist/dbconnector.php); } ?> [/code] does that work or is there another way, I have create nothing in the dbconnector.php file except for connecting to my server and putting in my username and password, with a die or something this is what I have in my other page now, I haven't started getting around to making it add and take out the information yet [code] <?php $dbh=mysql_connect ("localhost", "ihavemyusernamehere", "<ihavemypasswordhere>") or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error()); mysql_select_db ("freelan4_mailinglist"); ?> [/code] I just want some general advice, I created a test database at www.freelancebusinessman.com you can see the newsletter sign up on the homepage, I will probably be removing the whole thing, but I wanted to create it completely, and create another file for me to log into, and send the emails, so I can test it, once I build a full one, then I will understand all the basics of working with databases and how mailing lists work, that is the reason I am playing, any guidance or help with any of this would be greatly appreciated, I put it in the php section because it was mostly about php.

Here is the code <?php if ($_POST['emailaddress'] == "") { print('I am sorry please go back and fill in the email address field properly'); }elseif ($_POST['firstname'] == "") { print('I am sorry please go back and fill in the first name correctly'); }elseif ($_POST['lastname'] == "") { print('I am sorry please go back and fill in the last name correctly'); }else { return true; include(/home/freelan4/public_html/cgi-bin/mailinglist/dbconnector.php); } ?> here is there error Parse error: parse error, unexpected '/' in /home/freelan4/public_html/cgi-bin/mailinglist/mailinglisthandler.php on line 17 Is this the proper way I am wanting to validate it, and if it properly validates then send it over the the file to work on setting up the database connection, and start getting it to enter the information there.

So for all the adding and removing data, I just use php scripts in my pages, like when someone fills out a form, it either adds it or removes it from the database. What about comments, why would someone ever comment there sql code, because it is never able to be read, or is that comnent mark meant to comment the sql commands if you need to during your php scripts. I am still new at the databasing part, I have done basic creation of databases but some of this other stuff I am working with right now, like for instance what is the collation latin1_swedish, then some stuff after it, what collation is that, is it safe to use most/all the time it is what phpmyadmin set them too, I created them using sql syntax, and it automatically set them to that collation.

What do I need to learn about collation in a database, there are so many different ones does it matter which one I use, or are each one for a purpose, I have been looking online for a reference, and couldnt finding anything that went into very much detail about collation. I was also wondering one other thing, is there a way to avoid using the dbms like for instance phpmyadmin and getting directly to a file where you can use all sql commands, and it keeps track of them, I have heard of using sql comments, but when I create a database using phpmy admin, and I just put in all the syntax even if I put in a comment, I never get to look at it again, that is what is confusing me, I need to understand this part of databasing before I Get much further.