[SOLVED] PHP MySql and Radio Values

[freddyw]

Hi there, My aim is to create a quiz application. The application has 5 catagories. Each catagory holds 100 questions in the database. 10 questions are randomly selected for each quiz. So far I have this. Which I have suprised myself getting it to work.

 

$conn = @mysql_connect ("localhost","freddy","password")
    or die ("connection error");
    
$rs = @mysql_select_db ("freddy", $conn)
    or die ("db error");

$id = rand(0,4);
$sql = sprintf("SELECT * FROM test WHERE id='$id'");

$rs = mysql_query ($sql, $conn);


while ($row = mysql_fetch_array ($rs))

{

    echo ("Question 1: " .  $row["question"] ."<br><br>");
    echo ("A: " . $row["answer1"] ."<br>");
    echo ("B: " . $row["answer2"] ."<br>");
    echo ("C: " . $row["answer3"] ."<br>");
    echo ("D: " . $row["answer4"] ."<br>");

}

 

This randomly selects a question from the database along with four possable answers.

 

I want to advance this further. I could repeat this code ten times. However all good programmers are lazy programmers. I want to create a code that simpply says... repeat this code if question number <10.  This way it will generate 10 questions. not just 1.

 

Further to this rather than having

A: answer

B: answer

 

i would like the letters to be replaced with radio buttons.

 

any help on how to acchieve either of these tasks?

[mikesta707]

well whats the range for acceptable ID numbers? 1-4? once You know that do something like

for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++){

//this will repeat 10 times, but we need to change it

//so that you get a different random number each time.

//what is the acceptable range of id numbers?

$id = rand(0,4);

$sql = sprintf("SELECT * FROM test WHERE id='$id'");

 

$rs = mysql_query ($sql, $conn);

 

 

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array ($rs)){

 

    echo ("Question 1: " .  $row["question"] ."<br><br>");

    echo ("A: " . $row["answer1"] ."<br>");

    echo ("B: " . $row["answer2"] ."<br>");

    echo ("C: " . $row["answer3"] ."<br>");

    echo ("D: " . $row["answer4"] ."<br>");

 

}

}

[freddyw]

Thanks very much. I only have it set to 4 at the moment as i only have 4 questions in the database. so when i whave 100 questions it will be (0,100).

[mikesta707]

ahh ok, well then

 

for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++){
//this will repeat 10 times, but we need to change it
//so that you get a different random number each time.
//what is the acceptable range of id numbers?
$id = rand(0,10);
$temp = $id*$i;
$temp += (100 - $temp > 10) ? rand(0,10) : 0;
$id=$temp;
$sql = sprintf("SELECT * FROM test WHERE id='$id'");

$rs = mysql_query ($sql, $conn);


while ($row = mysql_fetch_array ($rs)){

    echo ("Question 1: " .  $row["question"] ."<br><br>");
    echo ("A: " . $row["answer1"] ."<br>");
    echo ("B: " . $row["answer2"] ."<br>");
    echo ("C: " . $row["answer3"] ."<br>");
    echo ("D: " . $row["answer4"] ."<br>");

}
}

 

btw these lines

$temp = $id*$i;
$temp += (100 - $temp > 10) ? rand(1,9) : 0;

 

but this will get questions in intervals. like if $i is 1, it will choose from 11-20, if $i is 2, 21-30 and so on. I'm sure there is a better way, but this is how I would do it off the top of my head. if you give me a little while I can probably come up with a better solution

 

[ToonMariner]

<?php
$sql = sprintf("SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 0,10");
$rs = mysql_query($sql);
$i=1;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array ($rs))

{

    echo ("Question " . $i++ .": " .  $row["question"] ."<br><br>");
    echo ("A: " . $row["answer1"] ."<br>");
    echo ("B: " . $row["answer2"] ."<br>");
    echo ("C: " . $row["answer3"] ."<br>");
    echo ("D: " . $row["answer4"] ."<br>");

}
?>

 

querying in a loop is inefficient and you have to check that the random generated has not already been used - let the database do all that for you.

 

[mikesta707]

Ahh I knew there was a much better way. Yeah use that

[freddyw]

Thanks alot you two. As I've mentioned before in different threads, I'm new to PHP, I get so far learning it, then the more I learn, it seems the amount to still learn keeps increasing.

 

I appreciate both of you for helping with this. Do we have any idea how to change the letters to radio values?

[mikesta707]

oh yeah my bad forgot about that

echo ("<input type='radio' name='radio' value='".$row['answer1']."'> A: " . $row["answer1"] ."<br>");

[freddyw]

genius

thanks alot