The purpose of this tutorial is to show you how to create a very simple guestbook using PHP and a MySQL database. So lets get started:
Creating a database:
First thing we need to do is to create our mysql database. You can use the code below to create yours or use this as a example to create yours manually.
Create a database named guestbook_db then create this table.
CREATE TABLE `guestbook` (
`id` INT( 10 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
`name` VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL ,
`email` VARCHAR( 50 ) NOT NULL ,
`message` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`time` TIMESTAMP( 14 ) NOT NULL
) ENGINE = MYISAM ;
Or in PHP code:
PHP Code
Example:
<?
$sql =
'CREATE TABLE
`guestbook` ('
.
' `id` INT(10) NOT NULL
AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, '
.
' `name` VARCHAR(50)
NOT NULL, '
.
' `email` VARCHAR(50)
NOT NULL, '
.
' `message` TEXT NOT
NULL, '
.
' `time` TIMESTAMP(14)
NOT NULL'
.
' )'
.
' ENGINE =
myisam;';
?>
On to the good stuff
Now we can start writing our code... see the comments in the code for instructions and who and whats is what.
PHP Code
Example:
<?include
"database_connection.php"; // Include the database
information?><HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Guestbook</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><?if(isset($_POST['submit_entry']))
{// If a post is being
submitted then do the followingdbConnect("guestbook_db");
// Connect to database/* This following code will
loop through all the information the user sent using the form
and strip out harmful
text, code and html. After this code is
execute it puts the filtered values back into the original
variables */for(reset($HTTP_POST_VARS);
$key=key($HTTP_POST_VARS);
next($HTTP_POST_VARS)) { $this =
addslashes($HTTP_POST_VARS[$key]); $this =
str_replace(array("\", "/"), '',
$this); $this = strtr($this,
">", " "); $this = strtr($this,
"<", " "); $this = strtr($this,
"|", " "); $key =
$this;
}// This will stop a user
from submitting a empty formif ($name && $email
&& $message ) {// Now we insert the data
from the form into our database table
$sql = "INSERT INTO
guestbook SET name =
'$name', email =
'$email', message =
'$message', time =
NULL";// If there is a problem
return an error if
(!mysql_query($sql)) error('A database error
occurred in processing your '. 'submission.\nIf
this error persists, please '. 'contact
admin@yourdomain.com.');// Return this message to
the user if everything was
successfulecho "Message added to
guestbook";}else
{echo "Please fill out all
the fields in the form";}exit;}?><H1>Entries</H1><?dbConnect("guestbook_db");
// Connect to database$limit =
10;// Select all of the
entries in the table guestbook and order then by their
ID$sql = "SELECT * FROM
guestbook ORDER BY id DESC";$result =
mysql_query($sql);$row =
mysql_fetch_assoc($result);// Count the number of
rows(entries) in our
table(guestbook)$num=mysql_numrows($result);// Set our counter to
0$i=0;// Create a while loop that
will go through all of our entries in the
tablewhile ($i < $num)
{// Putting our entries from
the table into short variable names$name=mysql_result($result,$i,"name");$email=mysql_result($result,$i,"email");$message=mysql_result($result,$i,"message");$time=mysql_result($result,$i,"time");// This is where we start
our html code for listing the entries in our
database?><b>Name:</b>
<? echo $name ?><br><b>Email:</b>
<? echo $email ?><br><b>Date/Time:</b>
<? echo $time ?><br><b>Message:</b>
<? echo $message ?><HR><?$i++; // Increment our
counter for the next entry in the
guestbook}?><H1>Add A
Message</H1><FORM METHOD="post"
ACTION="#"><PRE>Your Name:
<INPUT
TYPE="text"
NAME="name"
SIZE="20"
MAXLENGTH="50">Your Email:
<INPUT
TYPE="text"
NAME="email"
SIZE="20"
MAXLENGTH="50">Enter
Message:<TEXTAREA NAME="message"
COLS="40" ROWS="8"
WRAP="Virtual"></TEXTAREA><INPUT TYPE="submit"
NAME="submit_entry" VALUE="Add"></PRE></FORM></BODY></HTML>
