Tutorial: guest book

jasondsouza · Post by **jasondsouza** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 6:19 pm

does anyone know how to create a guest book using php

please help i am keen to create one

i will also accept anyone telling me a good site to learn about it

Moderated by Lixas

Lixas · Post by **Lixas** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 9:06 pm

i could help you with this. Just post here what u whant to do exactly, and i will help u to make guest book. My experience in php is enought to create sutch scripts

jasondsouza · Post by **jasondsouza** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:44 pm

I want to create a guest book with the following fields using php

Name
location
date of birth
email
website
message
rate my site [compo box] 1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

thanks

Lixas · Post by **Lixas** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:05 pm

i would like you to ask one question. wher you will save all your data
i could help you with mysql and with flatfiles (no data server nedded, only flat file on web server). I could suggest you mysql because it is easier to manipulate data, so now i'm waiting for your answer, and then i'll begin to write step by step tutorial

NOTE: Smokyhosts support mysql

jasondsouza · Post by **jasondsouza** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:14 pm

please help me to embed that file in html first of all

i would like to go with my sql

thanks

Lixas · Post by **Lixas** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:55 pm

First of all you have to create new mysql database (or you can use existing one). You can do this via phpmyadmin (search in CPanel, now I do not have account in smokyhosts, so I can not tell you exact path, but I remember that this is not difficult) Then create a new table. Go to database and search for such image as u see below

Then, we have to create fields for data. Well need such fields: id, name, location, date of birth (lets name this field birth_day), email, website, message, rating (1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 as available option). I will explain only what for is id. ID is a record number, I always use it in all my tables, so Im suggesting you to use ID.
So now I will show what types of fields should be

ID MEDIUMINT (5) extra-> Auto_increment and primary (radio button with key)
Name VARCHAR (150) NULL default- No Name
Location VARCHAR (250) NULL
Birth_Day DATE(10) NULL
Email- VARCHAR(250) NULL
Website- VARCHAR(250) NULL
Message- TEXT NOT_NULL (do not write any numbers in lenght)
Rating- TINYINT(2) NULL

So we will have such structure in mysql. Create all fields names in lowercase letters.

After pressing save you should se a message
Table gbook has been created. SQL-query:

Code: Select all

CREATE TABLE `gbook` (
`id` MEDIUMINT( 5 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`name` VARCHAR( 150 ) DEFAULT 'No Name',
`location` VARCHAR( 250 ) ,
`birth_day` DATE,
`email` VARCHAR( 250 ) ,
`website` VARCHAR( 250 ) ,
`message` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`rating` TINYINT( 2 ) ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `id` ) 
);

NOTE: If you know how to use sql queries, u can use it for creating mysql table.

So now we have created mysql table for our guest book. The next step to we have to create html form for recording a new message

I will create just a simple form without any super duper scripts and without good looking and Ill post here only a source, use notepad to save it into file save.php.

Code: Select all

<?
if ($_POST["action"]=="submit")
{
	include("mysql.php"); // we include this file to connect to our database
	if (isset($_POST["name"])) $name=$_POST["name"]; //if there is any data in Name field, let's write it to variable $name
	if (isset($_POST["location"])) $location=$_POST["location"]; //the same here for location field and so on for others
	if (isset($_POST["birth_day"])) $b_day=$_POST["birth_day"]; 
	if (isset($_POST["email"])) $email=$_POST["email"]; 
	if (isset($_POST["website"])) $web=$_POST["website"];
	if (isset($_POST["message"])) $message=$_POST["message"]; 
	if (isset($_POST["rating"])) $rating=$_POST["rating"];
	mysql_query("INSERT INTO gbook (name, location, birth_day, email, website, message, rating) VALUES ('$name','$location','$b_day','$email','$web','$message', '$rating')") or die("Can not insert values. Error: ".mysql_error());

	$title="Thank You!";
	$done="1"; //we have recorded new record
}
else
{
	$title="New Comment";
	$done="0";
	
}

?>
<html>
<head>
<title><?echo $title?></title>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" TYPE="text/javascript">
function close_win(msg)
	{
	opener.location.href='index.php';
	self.close();
	}
</script>
</head>
<?if ($done==0)
{?>
<body>
[align=center]
<form method="POST" action="save.php">
Name: <input type="text" name="name" size="20">

Location: <input type="text" name="location" size="20">

Day of birth: <input type="text" name="birth_day" size="20"> Format: <? echo date(Y.".".m.".".d);?>

E-mail: <input type="text" name="email" size="20">

WebSite: <input type="text" name="website" size="20">

Message: <textarea name="message" rows="12" cols="20" wrap="soft"></textarea>

Rating<select name="rating">
	<?
	#we will use php loop to create dropdown memu
	for($i=1; $i<11; $i++)
		{
		echo "<option value=\"$i\">$i</option>"; //to echo " to browser, u have to use slash before "
		}
	?>
</select>

<input type="hidden" name="action" value="submit">
<input type="submit" value="Go"><input type="reset" value="Clear all fields">
</p>
</form>[/align]
<?}
	else {?>
	<body onload="close_win()">
[align=center]Thank You! Your comment has been recorded! [align=center]
<?}?>

</body></html>

Index.php

Code: Select all

<?
include("mysql.php"); // we include this file to connect to our database
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Guest Book</title>
</head>
 <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" TYPE="text/javascript">
function newpop(url)
{
var windowprops = "width=450, height=450, location=no, toolbar=no, menubar=no, scrollbars=yes, resizable=yes, top=50, left=200";
newwindow=window.open(url,'news_pop',windowprops);
}
</script>
<body>
[url=javascript:void(0)]<font size="5">Post</font>[/url]<hr width="80%">

<?
$rez=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `gbook` order by id desc") or die(mysql_error());
$n=mysql_num_rows($rez);

#in this for loop, you can format how do u want to display records from database
#to get data, use $r["rowname"] 
for ($i=0; $i<$n; $i++)
{
$r=mysql_fetch_array($rez);
$name=$r["name"];
$email=$r["email"];
$location=$r["location"];
$birth_day=$r["birth_day"];
$website=$r["website"];
$rating=$r["rating"];
$message=$r["message"];
echo "$name:
 $message<hr>"; 
}
// and use all html formating tools to output data as you want, and dont foget abou quotes, if you want to oupot quotes, use slash
?>
</body>
</html>

Mysql.php

Code: Select all

<?
function mysqlc(){
	$server = 'localhost'; // server adress, mostly localhost
	$user = 'root'; //username
	$pass = 'some_kind_of_password'; //password
	$database = 'guestbook'; //database name
	
	mysql_connect($server, $user, $pass) or die("Can not connect to server. Error: ".mysql_error());
	mysql_select_db($database) or die("Can not select database. Error: ".mysql_error());}

	mysqlc()
?>

Finished, it tooked two hours to create this stuff, next time i will suggest google for sutch script

good luck with learning. If you will have any problems, just pm me, i'll allways help you

Lixas

jasondsouza · Post by **jasondsouza** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:56 pm

Thanks Lixas YOu were a great help

vshost · Post by **vshost** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:07 pm

Great thanks. I actually wrote myself a guestbook a while ago and a lot of people use it.

mohumben · Post by **mohumben** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:04 am

As an alternative to MySQL, you can also use files as databases.
Basically, use the file handling functions to handle the files (fopen(), fwrite(), etc.) and serialize() to make data "storable".

jeremy90 · Post by **jeremy90** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:58 am

thanks for the code Lixas, i might want to use that in the future