Calling specific DB entries

[kamu]

I'm really new at PHP, I just bought a book to help me modify my boards a little bit. To practice, I tried calling user ID #1 from the database and posting it on the forum home.

I know this may look way off but here's what I did.

PHP Code:

// Locate Forum Administrator
  $findadmin = mysql_query ($adminquery);
  $adminquery = "SELECT username FROM user WHERE userid = '1'";
  $whosadmin = "The administrator of this forum is $findadmin"; 


I added this into index.php and added the variable $whosadmin to the forumhome template.

It's appearing on my board as "The administrator of this forum is" - and stops at the good part >.<


What did I miss or where did I mess up?

[filburt1]

Originally Posted by kamu

I'm really new at PHP, I just bought a book to help me modify my boards a little bit. To practice, I tried calling user ID #1 from the database and posting it on the forum home.

I know this may look way off but here's what I did.

PHP Code:

// Locate Forum Administrator
  $findadmin = mysql_query ($adminquery);
  $adminquery = "SELECT username FROM user WHERE userid = '1'";
  $whosadmin = "The administrator of this forum is $findadmin"; 


I added this into index.php and added the variable $whosadmin to the forumhome template.

It's appearing on my board as "The administrator of this forum is" - and stops at the good part >.<


What did I miss or where did I mess up?

Except for the query (but there's a slight problem there too), you are off.

The correct code:

PHP Code:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT username FROM user WHERE userid = 1");
$user = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$adminusername = $user['username'];

$admintext = "The administrator of this forum is $adminusername."; 


What I changed (other than some variable names but yours are not that bad):

1. The correct procedure is execute the query, saving the result to a variable, and then save the result of mysql_fetch_array(that result) to another variable. mysql_fetch_array() returns one resulting row of the query as an array, where each array key corresponds to a column name in the query.
2. Do not use quotes for numeric columns in MySQL.

If you are using a vB-powered page, then replace mysql_query() with $DB_site->query() and mysql_fetch_array() with $DB_site->fetch_array().[/list]

[ZranX]

Use this code instead.

PHP Code:

// Locate Forum Administrator 
$findadmin = $DB_site->query_first("
    SELECT username 
    FROM user 
    WHERE userid = '1'
"); 

$whosadmin = 'The administrator of this forum is ' . $findadmin['username']; 


I'm sure as you learn php some more you will find an infinite amount of other methods of doing this but this will do for now.

EDIT: Wrote this post when there was no reply.

[kamu]

Thanks guys, your examples really helped me out. Your prompt responses are greatly appriciated.