Help please simplifying code

[apw]

Hello

 

  Hello, I was wondering if you could give me your suggestions on simplifying some code I had written.  What I'm attempting

to do is the following:

 

  I created a database table called barn, I added a few rows in the barn (as tests) called ..

slot1_name to slot5_name

 

in each of these i filled as different foods such as potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, pumpkins and grapes (as examples)

 

now my question is, after i query my DB as follows:

  

$barnstats="SELECT * from fw_barn where playername='$player'";

    $barnstats2=mysql_query($barnstats) or die("Could not get user stats");

    $barnstats3=mysql_fetch_array($barnstats2);

 

I now have all my slots loaded into my $barnstats3 (i think) but my question is ...

 

Say player A wants to buy another food from the vendor, the script has all the current foods that player A has in their barn ..

but needs to check to see if any available slot1 to slot5 are empty .. what I did was I wrote 5 different if statements checking

to see if those slots are already filled .. is there just one if statement I can write instead to check all slot1 to slot5 to see if

they are either empty OR have something already inside them?

 

Thanks in advance for your help

[Psycho]

  I created a database table called barn, I added a few rows in the barn (as tests) called ..

slot1_name to slot5_name

 

in each of these i filled as different foods such as potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, pumpkins and grapes (as examples)

Huh? Did you meant to say you create r columns (or fields) for slot1_name - slot5_name? Otherwise it doesn't make sense. Based upon your query I am guessing you have one record in the table per player and each record has 5 static fields for those slots.

 

Also, not sure what you meant about 5 if() statements since you should be doing the check in your query. Your current structure (If I understand it correctly) cannot be easily modified. So, only use it if you plan on never changing the number of slots. Otherwise I have a different solution below. but, with your current structure you can see if a play has any empty slots using a single query:

 

SELECT * FROM fw_barn
WHERE slot1_name = ""
   OR slot2_name = ""
   OR slot3_name = ""
   OR slot4_name = ""
   OR slot5_name = ""

But, even with that you then have to figure out which field is empty when you update the records.

 

A better way to handle this - especially if you ever want to change the number of slots, is to create the table so each record represents ONE slot associated with a player. So, each player can have up to five records in the table. You can then query the table to see how many records (slots) a user has. If less than 5 you know there is a slot available and you can just add the record - no need to see where the record will be added. Also, when a player removes an item you just delete that record to make the 'slot' available.