New to coding PHP .. so be gentle! Help with getting info from database.

[zombietuesday]

Hi .. i am currently trying to modify a script that drags just 1 random item of news from the database,
I have got as far making it drag 5 items of news out of the DB!
BUT .. what i really want is 5 items .. in order by date :)

the original code is here : [code]
<div align="justify"><? $row = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `match_news` ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5"));
echo nl2br($row["article"]);
?>
    </div>[/code]

what ive done to get 5 is here :
[code]<div align="justify"><? $newsAmount=0;
while ($newsAmount<5) {
$row = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `match_news` ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5"));

echo nl2br($row["article"]); ?><br /><hr><br /><?
$newsAmount++;
}
?>
    </div>
[/code]


Now im a complete newb at any kind of scripting .. the loop seemed easy enuff to figure out ( tho ive probably done it really really wrong!

Any help would be MUCH appreciated! I know this is real begginers stuff!

[HuggieBear]

OK, to order by date, you must have the date in the database field somewhere.  Assuming this is the case and the database field is called article_date, try this:

[code]
<div align="justify">
<?php
$query = "SELECT * FROM `match_news` ORDER BY article_date DESC LIMIT 5";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while (mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  echo nl2br($row["article"]);
  echo '<br /><hr><br />';
}
?>
</div>
[/code]

There's no point in limiting the loop to 5 iterations if you know your SQL array only contains 5 rows.  You've made the restriction in MySQL.

Regards
Huggie

[zombietuesday]

[quote author=HuggieBear link=topic=108751.msg437810#msg437810 date=1158746780]
OK, to order by date, you must have the date in the database field somewhere.  Assuming this is the case and the database field is called article_date, try this:

[code]
<div align="justify">
<?php
$query = "SELECT * FROM `match_news` ORDER BY article_date DESC LIMIT 5";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while (mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
   echo nl2br($row["article"]);
   echo '<br /><hr><br />';
}
?>
</div>
[/code]

There's no point in limiting the loop to 5 iterations if you know your SQL array only contains 5 rows.  You've made the restriction in MySQL.

Regards
Huggie
[/quote]

THANKS!!

im not to bothered about date as such .. more about the order they were put in...

is there something generic for that .. an ID or something ?

Thanks !

the 5 limit was to just get the last 5 news items .. maybe i did that wrong ?

[HuggieBear]

What columns are in your table?  It's always a good idea to have an auto-incrementing ID column of some kind in there.

e.g.

[b]Match_News[/b]
Article_ID (unique, auto-increment)
Article_Title
Article_Date
Article_Contents

Then your sql could look like this:

[code]
<div align="justify">
<?php
$query = "SELECT * FROM `Match_News` ORDER BY Article_ID DESC LIMIT 5";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while (mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  echo nl2br($row["article"]);
  echo '<br /><hr><br />';
}
?>
</div>
[/code]

Regards
Huggie

[zombietuesday]

[quote author=HuggieBear link=topic=108751.msg437820#msg437820 date=1158748026]
What columns are in your table?  It's always a good idea to have an auto-incrementing ID column of some kind in there.

e.g.

[b]Match_News[/b]
Article_ID (unique, auto-increment)
Article_Title
Article_Date
Article_Contents



Then your sql could look like this:

[code]
<div align="justify">
<?php
$query = "SELECT * FROM `Match_News` ORDER BY Article_ID DESC LIMIT 5";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while (mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
   echo nl2br($row["article"]);
   echo '<br /><hr><br />';
}
?>
</div>
[/code]

Regards
Huggie
[/quote]


Looks to be just the 2

id and article

id = auto_increment

[HuggieBear]

In that case the following should work.

Huggie

[code]<div align="justify">
<?php
$query = "SELECT * FROM `Match_News` ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 5";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while (mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  echo nl2br($row["article"]);
  echo '<br /><hr><br />';
}
?>
</div>[/code]