A comment box that associates with it's own article in my diy blog

[danmc]

Sorry If this is abit vague but i'm in my first year at uni & a complete beginner to php etc.

 

I have made a basic blog using dreamweaver, split it into topics and the topics articles. I have used dynamic tables to display the articles from a mysql database. Now here's where I have come unstuck I can not get the comments to display only on the article being commented on?. They either display on all articles or just one post with matching id's when I try and use a filter?. I have been using another dynamic table for the comments with a record insertion form on the same page as the article.

Any help would be Greatly appreciated

Thanks.

[cunoodle2]

post some code to give us something to look at.  Be sure to block out all usernames and passwords prior to posting code.

[discomatt]

My suggestion is to drop dreamweaver. There's not substitute for understanding a language as complex as PHP thoroughly.

 

If you keep using dreamweaver to code you're going to consistently run into issues you won't be able to solve on your own.

[soycharliente]

Why is using Dreamweaver bad? I disagree personally. It's the same as using some other text editor to program in. It doesn't matter what you using to write your code.

[danmc]

Heres the page this is my first assignment and I'm a complete beginner thats why i'm using dreamweaver at the minute.

<?php require_once('Connections/cet_mysql_01.php'); ?>
<?php
if (!function_exists("GetSQLValueString")) {
function GetSQLValueString($theValue, $theType, $theDefinedValue = "", $theNotDefinedValue = "") 
{
  $theValue = get_magic_quotes_gpc() ? stripslashes($theValue) : $theValue;

  $theValue = function_exists("mysql_real_escape_string") ? mysql_real_escape_string($theValue) : mysql_escape_string($theValue);

  switch ($theType) {
    case "text":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;    
    case "long":
    case "int":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? intval($theValue) : "NULL";
      break;
    case "double":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . doubleval($theValue) . "'" : "NULL";
      break;
    case "date":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? "'" . $theValue . "'" : "NULL";
      break;
    case "defined":
      $theValue = ($theValue != "") ? $theDefinedValue : $theNotDefinedValue;
      break;
  }
  return $theValue;
}
}

$editFormAction = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
if (isset($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
  $editFormAction .= "?" . htmlentities($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);
}

if ((isset($_POST["MM_insert"])) && ($_POST["MM_insert"] == "form1")) {
  $insertSQL = sprintf("INSERT INTO Comments (ComEmail, ComName, ComText, ComDate) VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s)",
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['ComEmail'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['ComName'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['ComText'], "text"),
                       GetSQLValueString($_POST['ComDate'], "date"));

  mysql_select_db($database_cet_mysql_01, $cet_mysql_01);
  $Result1 = mysql_query($insertSQL, $cet_mysql_01) or die(mysql_error());

  $insertGoTo = "index.php";
  if (isset($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
    $insertGoTo .= (strpos($insertGoTo, '?')) ? "&" : "?";
    $insertGoTo .= $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
  }
  header(sprintf("Location: %s", $insertGoTo));
}
?>
<?php require_once('Connections/cet_mysql_01.php'); ?>
<?php
mysql_select_db($database_cet_mysql_01, $cet_mysql_01);
$query_rsTopics = "SELECT * FROM Topics ORDER BY TopicTitle ASC";
$rsTopics = mysql_query($query_rsTopics, $cet_mysql_01) or die(mysql_error());
$row_rsTopics = mysql_fetch_assoc($rsTopics);
$totalRows_rsTopics = mysql_num_rows($rsTopics);

$colname_rsArticle = "-1";
if (isset($_GET['ArticleId'])) {
  $colname_rsArticle = (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) ? $_GET['ArticleId'] : addslashes($_GET['ArticleId']);
}
mysql_select_db($database_cet_mysql_01, $cet_mysql_01);
$query_rsArticle = sprintf("SELECT * FROM Articles INNER JOIN Topics ON ArticleTopicId=TopicId WHERE ArticleId = %s", $colname_rsArticle);
$rsArticle = mysql_query($query_rsArticle, $cet_mysql_01) or die(mysql_error());
$row_rsArticle = mysql_fetch_assoc($rsArticle);
$totalRows_rsArticle = mysql_num_rows($rsArticle);

$maxRows_Comments = 10;
$pageNum_Comments = 0;
if (isset($_GET['pageNum_Comments'])) {
  $pageNum_Comments = $_GET['pageNum_Comments'];
}
$startRow_Comments = $pageNum_Comments * $maxRows_Comments;

mysql_select_db($database_cet_mysql_01, $cet_mysql_01);
$query_Comments = "SELECT * FROM Comments ORDER BY ComDate DESC";
$query_limit_Comments = sprintf("%s LIMIT %d, %d", $query_Comments, $startRow_Comments, $maxRows_Comments);
$Comments = mysql_query($query_limit_Comments, $cet_mysql_01) or die(mysql_error());
$row_Comments = mysql_fetch_assoc($Comments);

if (isset($_GET['totalRows_Comments'])) {
  $totalRows_Comments = $_GET['totalRows_Comments'];
} else {
  $all_Comments = mysql_query($query_Comments);
  $totalRows_Comments = mysql_num_rows($all_Comments);
}
$totalPages_Comments = ceil($totalRows_Comments/$maxRows_Comments)-1;
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html><!-- InstanceBegin template="/Templates/DanBlog.dwt.php" codeOutsideHTMLIsLocked="false" -->
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="doctitle" -->
<title>Blog: Article</title>
<!-- InstanceEndEditable --><!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="head" -->
<link href="Templates/danblog.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->

<link href="/Templates/danblog.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>

<body>
<table width="100%"  border="0" cellspacing="7" cellpadding="0">
  <tr valign="top">
    <td colspan="2"><img src="images/logo.jpg" width="258" height="179"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr valign="top">
    <td width="15%">
      <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TopBox">
        <tr>
          <td valign="top" class="TopBoxHead">Topics</td>
        </tr>
        <?php do { ?>
        <tr>
          <td class="TopBody"><a href="topic.php?TopicId=<?php echo $row_rsTopics['TopicId']; ?>"><?php echo $row_rsTopics['TopicTitle']; ?></a></td>
        </tr>
        <?php } while ($row_rsTopics = mysql_fetch_assoc($rsTopics)); ?>
    </table></td>
    <td><!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="main" -->
      <table width="100%"  border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="TopicText">
        <tr class="TopBoxHead">
          <td><?php echo $row_rsArticle['TopicTitle']; ?> > <?php echo $row_rsArticle['ArticleTitle']; ?></td>
          <td><div align="right">Published: <?php echo $row_rsArticle['ArticleDate']; ?></div></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan="2" class="HeaderBody"><?php echo $row_rsArticle['ArticleDescription']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan="2"><?php echo $row_rsArticle['ArticleText']; ?></td>
        </tr>
      </table>
            <p> </p>
    
      <table width="100%" border="1">

              <?php do { ?>
                <tr>
                  <td width="3%"> </td>
                  <td width="49%"><?php echo $row_Comments['ComName']; ?></td>
                  <td width="48%"><?php echo $row_Comments['ComDate']; ?></td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                  <td> </td>
                  <td colspan="2"><?php echo $row_Comments['ComEmail']; ?></td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                  <td> </td>
                  <td colspan="2"><?php echo $row_Comments['ComText']; ?></td>
                </tr>
                <?php } while ($row_Comments = mysql_fetch_assoc($Comments)); ?>
            </table>
            <p> </p>
            <form method="post" name="form1" action="<?php echo $editFormAction; ?>">
              <table align="center">
                <tr valign="baseline">
                  <td nowrap align="right">Email:</td>
                  <td><input type="text" name="ComEmail" value="" size="32"></td>
                </tr>
                <tr valign="baseline">
                  <td nowrap align="right">Name:</td>
                  <td><input type="text" name="ComName" value="" size="32"></td>
                </tr>
                <tr valign="baseline">
                  <td nowrap align="right">Comment:</td>
                  <td><input type="text" name="ComText" value="" size="32"></td>
                </tr>
                <tr valign="baseline">
                  <td nowrap align="right"> </td>
                  <td><input type="submit" value="Insert record"></td>
                </tr>
              </table>
              <input type="hidden" name="ComDate" value="<?php echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s'); ?>">
              <input type="hidden" name="MM_insert" value="form1">
            </form>
            <p> </p>
  <!-- InstanceEndEditable --></td>
  </tr>
  <tr valign="top">
    <td colspan="2"><div align="center">Spare tester link <br>
    <a href="http://www.danmc.info" target="_blank"> Danmc.info</a></div></td>
  </tr>
</table>
</body>
<!-- InstanceEnd --></html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($rsTopics);

mysql_free_result($rsArticle);

mysql_free_result($Comments);
?>

[danmc]

To be honest I haven't looked at the code itself because I'm a bit of a php noob. I know I need a a way to associate each set of comments to each article but just cant figure out how?. Do I expand the Article table to include room for comments?

Any help would be great thanks.

[discomatt]

Why is using Dreamweaver bad? I disagree personally. It's the same as using some other text editor to program in. It doesn't matter what you using to write your code.

 

Dreamweaver is not so much of an environment as it is a 'make-the-code-for-you' application. The problem is that most who uses it for php doesn't use it to write code.

 

As a coding environment, it's extremely bloated... mostly because it's not supposed to be used as just a plain-text editor. Hence why most people who code do not use dreamweaver.

[soycharliente]

To me, the best way to layout some kind of blog as far as your SQL tables go is something like this ...

 

users

--------

id

username

password

email

firstname

lastname

etc.

 

posts

-------

id

author_id <- an id from the users table, who made the post

post_date <- datetime type for returning in order

title

body

etc.

 

comments

------------

id

author_id <- an id from the users table, who made the comment

post_id <- an id from the post table, ie which post they commented on

comment_date <- datetime type for returning in order

title

body

etc.

 

You can associate each table to the other tables with the overlapping information.

 

SELECT * FROM posts p JOIN users u ON p.author_id=u.id

With that you can have access to the username, firstname, lastname, email, etc. of the person and have access to all the information about their post like the title, body, and post_date

 

SELECT * FROM comments c JOIN users u ON c.author_id=u.id WHERE post_id='$id'

With that, you get back all the comments for a defined post and you have access to each comment author's information in the same way as the posts.

 

Does any of the make sense? This is a very basic explanation.

[danmc]

Certainly does cheers I'll try it after I get back from the gym Thanks.