Trying to understand how to create a dynamic page from a mysql link

[amyk]

Hi guys.. 1st post here.  I'm pretty new to php.. just a few weeks in.  I've gotten pretty decent at making mysql connections and extracting data, but now I'm wanting to take one of my urls that I echo to my page and create a new page.  Hoping someone can help...  Here's the picture:

 

MY MySQL Setup:

I have 1 table called table1. It has 2 columns which are: 'Title' & 'Description'

 

My Index.php Page:

I connect to mysql. I pull the 'Title' from MySQL and loop it to produce 100 rows of data that fill my index page, as expected.

 

My Problem:

I now want to be able to click one of those rows and dynamically create a new page (description.php) that includes the 'Title' & 'Description'.

 

My Progress:

I've managed to click a row and create a hyperlink to mysite.com/$title (where 'title' is pulling the 'title' from the mysql db) but I all I get is page not found.

 

My Question:

How do I tell description.php to pull the 'Title' and 'Description' and link to it from index.php?

 

My Gratitude:

Thanks in advance!

[Rifts]

basically this is how it works

 

in your table you need

id    title    description

 

then you have mainpage

use php to loop through your table creating links with like this

<a href="articles.php?$row['id']">$row['title']</a>

 

then your article page is really just a shell

so you will use $_GET['id'] to grab which article was clicked then you can use a while loop using WHERE id=$_GET['id'] and pull that ids title and description thus filling in the shell page with whatever article was clicked.

 

 

I hope that helps/makes sense its a very rough explanation and I dont really know how much you already know.

 

If you want more help just let me know!

 

[amyk]

That's pretty much exactly the information I was looking for so thank you for pointing me in the right direction!  I'll try putting it into practice and holler back with any problems. 

 

Thanks again!  Big help! 

[amyk]

Okay... so this worked perfectly for me.  I am able to create the 'shell' page for my entire database.  Thank you! 

 

Now that I have the URL, I was just wondering if it was possible to reformat the url of the new page?  Currently, it looks something like: 

http://www.mydomain.com/description.php?id=the-title

 

For SEO purposes, is there a way to reconstruct it as: 

http://www.mydomain.com/the-title

 

[mmarif4u]

Yup, you can put this in the .htaccess file which will be in root directory.

 

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks
#If base(root) directory is different , change the line below to RewriteBase /directory
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ description.php?id=$1 [L]

 

In your php script:

Description: <?php echo $_REQUEST['id']; ?>

 

But make sure that mod_rewrite is enabled.

 

Good luck!

[amyk]

Excellent.  You guys are good!  Thanks very much!  I can see how this could get addicting. 

[the182guy]

Use a trailing slash in the URL, this is actually better for SEO than without...

 

http://www.mydomain.com/the-title/

[mmarif4u]

Use a trailing slash in the URL, this is actually better for SEO than without...

 

http://www.mydomain.com/the-title/

This line should cover that:

RewriteRule ^([^/\.]+)/?$ description.php?id=$1 [L]

/?$ which means that trailing slash is optional, in case some one miss it. ? represents optional. So in this case both URL pattern will work like:

http://domain.com/the-article

http://domain.com/the-article/

It is because some time we miss the trailing slash, so to avoid that problem, just adding ? will make it optional.