Testing for user never posted?
 

I'm working on a mod in attachment.php

I know $vbulletin->userinfo['posts'] could be '0' (zero) even if a user has posted before but their posts were deleted or are in a forum that doesn't count posts.

What's the best way to test if a user has never posted before?

Would testing $vbulletin->userinfo['lastpost'] work? If they have never posted before would this value be NULL or '0' (zero)?

Or is there a better way to definitively test if a user has never even tried to make a single post in the past?

Thanks for your help,
James

None of those will actually work, since in theory a user could have posted and have had all their posts hard deleted in which case no record of any posts will exist. Short of changing the db by adding a field to user which is a boolean that gets set when they first make a post.

Okay. How about when a new user is created? What is the initial value of $vbulletin->userinfo['lastpost'] ?

And what would be the value of $vbulletin->userinfo['lastpost'] after a user's posts have been hard deleted?

Maybe I can find a compromise that would work.

Thanks,
James

--------------- Added [DATE]1363145263[/DATE] at [TIME]1363145263[/TIME] ---------------

Okay. I did some testing and found something that should work for me.

When a user firsts posts the value for $vbulletin->userinfo['lastpost'] changes from '0' to a unix timestamp. Even if that post gets hard deleted, the value of $vbulletin->userinfo['lastpost'] will not revert to '0'. It stays set to the last updated unix timestamp.

This seems to be an option for testing if a user has never posted:
It works for me.