Creating a New Thread using vBulletins API

[Lynne]

When would you use this? Like in a cron job (scheduled task) to create a new thread?

[megamoose]

Originally Posted by Lynne

When would you use this? Like in a cron job (scheduled task) to create a new thread?

You can use this for a number of things like I have a database of jokes so I am going to run a cron every X hours to create new threads with the jokes in it. There are loads of uses for it like you can use it to let an external script (like a blog) create a new thread.

This is just a handy piece of code that should let anyone create a script around it (if they know a bit of PHP) to create threads for whatever reason they may have!

[ragtek]

1. you don't need to inlcude this files:

PHP Code:

require_once('./includes/class_dm.php');
require_once('./includes/class_dm_threadpost.php'); 


it's happening automatic
2.
why you eval this part?:

PHP Code:

eval('$title = "' . addslashes("THE THREAD TITLE") . '";');                     // The title of the thread
eval('$pagetext = "' . addslashes("THE CONTENT OF THE POST") . '";');           // The content of the thread 


[megamoose]

Thanks ragtek, have edited my code and post. I evaled it because I thought to make it secure from SQL exploits you had to. Maybe it was something in a previous vB version, I'm not sure. I've removed it and it's still working fine, and the addslashes still works.

Thanks!

[tms1791]

Thanks for making it painless.

You might want to replace the addslashes() calls with mysql_real_escape_string() though.

Thanks again!

--------------- Added [DATE]1262068851[/DATE] at [TIME]1262068851[/TIME] ---------------

I spoke too soon (about it being painless)...

I have a site where the forums are secondary to the rest of the site, which is also database driven. What I first tried to do was incorporate the above code into my admin interface so that when I added or edited a record in the database, the details of that record would be posted as a new thread. It almost worked, but I was getting an error that I couldn't get around, and googling it led me to believe that it had to me having an existing database connection when I tried to load the vB includes.

No big deal, right? I'll just put the code into a separate script, and POST a request to that script, so it'll be completely independent of my own stuff. Kind of clunky, but whatever - as long as it works. It didn't. Sort of.

I'm able to create a new thread, and the title & content are there, but the body of the post is showing the \n (carriage returns) instead of converting them to.. carriage returns. So instead of this:

The quick brown
fox jumped over
the slow
lazy dog.

I get this:

The quick brown\nfox jumped over\nthe slow\nlazy dog.

in the post.

I added some debugging code to make sure that I'm POSTing the data correctly and that it's coming through on the other side properly, and everything seems hunky dory. I also tried running nl2br() on the content data, but then I just get:

The quick brown<br />fox jumped over<br />the slow<br />lazy dog.

in the body of the post.

It seems like it should be totally trivial - and maybe it is (I've been coding all day with very little sleep last night) - but I can't figure it out.

What am I missing? (And before anyone asks, yes, I'm enclosing the \n's in double quotes. )

--------------- Added [DATE]1262108422[/DATE] at [TIME]1262108422[/TIME] ---------------

Ok, after some sleep, I realized what was happening.

Don't use my suggestion of replacing addslashes() with mysql_real_escape_string() - it was escaping the carriage returns and literally inserting a \n into the text.

All is right in the universe now.

[NolanChart]

Very nice script!

One question: once created, how can I retrieve the newly created thread id?

[ragtek]

PHP Code:

$threadid = $threaddm->save(); 


[Digma]

Why I have never spotted this thread is a riddle to me. I ploughed through dozens of them and ended up doing roughly the same thing as you. Even posted a question if my working code was complete like that in the vb3 programming discussion forum. *sigh*..

[NolanChart]

Originally Posted by ragtek

PHP Code:

$threadid = $threaddm->save(); 


Boy, do I feel dumb!