Help with a script

[fred999]

Hi all, i need help for a little php script, here is what i need:

I have a table named "clans" with 4 field in it (name, url, logo, description)
I have a php page with "A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-........."
I need to create the links on the letters that will only show all clans that begins with the clicked letter

I just dont have a damn idea on how to do this, i am sure that the php gurus out there can help me with something simple, i only code for fun and im still newb. Thanks in advance

fred

[Roberdin]

Do u mean a mysql table?

Try something like this

Letters:
<a href="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>?letter=a">A</a>
<a href="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>?letter=b">B</a>
<a href="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>?letter=c">C</a>
...
<a href="<?php echo $PHP_SELF; ?>?letter=z">Z</a> <br /><br />

<?php

// Connect to DB... blah blah blah

$db_host = 'localhost'; // Probably OK
$db_user = 'Bob'; // Change to your MySQL Username
$db_pass = 'bar'; // Change to your MySQL Password
$db_name = 'database'; // Change to your MySQL Database name

$db_connect = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_pass);
$db = mysql_select_db($db_name);

// END DB Connection


// Find the letter=whatever stuff in the URL and assign it to
// the $starting_letter variable
$starting_letter = $_GET['letter'];

// Create + execute SQL
$sql = "SELECT * FROM clans
    WHERE LEFT(name, 1) = '$starting_letter'";

$result = mysql_query($sql);

// While there are results, keep looping...
while( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result) )
{
     // Echo the results...
     echo 'Clan: <a href="' . $row['url'] . '">' . $row['name'] . '</a><br />';
     echo '<img src="' . $row['logo'] . '" /><br />';
     echo $row['description'] . '<br /><br />';
}
     
// End
?>

[fred999]

Roberdin ! thanks alot !!

This code did everything i wanted :) thank you!

fred

[Roberdin]

No probs.

Actually that isn't too secure - you may wish to change

$starting_letter = $_GET;

to

$starting_letter = addslashes($_GET);

[samaru]

I have a function I use when I'm inserting snippets of code into a MySQL database:

function mysql_safe_data($string) {
		$string = stripslashes($string);
		$string = str_replace("'", "''", $string);
		$string = str_replace("\\", "\\\\", $string);
		return $string;
	}

If you don't replace \\ with \\\\ you're going to have problems with slashes when you insert them into MySQL. Just try inserting this code that highlights text into MySQL through an HTML form and see what I mean.

function highlight($string, $words_to_highlight, $delimiter=" ", $case=0,
		$left_string="<b span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">", $right_string="</b>") {  
  // This is so it highlights the first word. Each word in a textblock must be surrounded by
  // [^A-Za-z] in order to highlight whole words, and not subwords. 
		/* Filtering Process:
	 Replace statements take out all malicious chars that would break the
	 search part of a regular expression. Takes unwanted chars and only lets the chars:
	 [^-a-zA-Z0-9&] in. */  
  $list_of_words = eregi_replace("[^-a-zA-Z0-9&']", " ", $words_to_highlight);   
		// This portion of code is to take out single word characters.
  $list_array = explode(" ", $list_of_words);
  for($i=0; $i<sizeof($list_array); $i++) 
   if(strlen($list_array[$i]) == 1) 
	$list_array[$i] = "";  
  $list_of_words = implode(" ", $list_array); // Use space as delimiter
  $list_of_words = eregi_replace(" +", "|", $list_of_words); 
  // Make sure there aren't any pipes | around $list_of_words
  if($list_of_words{0}=="|")
   $list_of_words{0} = "";
  if($list_of_words{strlen($list_of_words)-1}=="|")
   $list_of_words{strlen($list_of_words)-1}="";  
  $list_of_words = "(".trim($list_of_words).")";
  if($case==0)
   return eregi_replace("$list_of_words", "$left_string"."\\1"."$right_string", $string); 
  else
   return ereg_replace("$list_of_words", "$left_string"."\\1"."$right_string", $string); 
 } // end function highlight

[Roberdin]

...what's wrong with addslashes()? It add slashes to already existing slashes

[fred999]

thanks alot guys! i really appreciate!

if you want to see the result go there: http://www.battlefield-vietnam.ca/clans.php

:)

fred