Comments box/guestbook php

StupidIdiot · #1 Jun 9th, 2008, 22:42

I had a good look around to see if this was answered already and couldn't find anything that I understood!

I want visitors to enter a comment in a page called Comment.htm:

HTML: Select all

<html><head>
 
 <title>Guestbook</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"></head>
<body> 
<hr />
<center><form action="comments.php" method="get">
 <textarea rows="8" cols="40"></textarea><br />
  <input type="image" name="submit" src="Buttons/Submit_off.png" onmouseover="this.src='Buttons/Submit_on.png';"onmouseout="this.src='Buttons/Submit_off.png';"> 
</form></center>
<hr />
</body>
</html>

There's a lot of rubbish about mouseovers that you can ignore. As you see I used a php file called comments.php. I want this to save the comments and post them onto a page called View.htm. But I don't have a clue how to do it as you may have guessed!

So what do I put in comments.php?
And is Comment.htm even right? I'm not sure of this bit: form action="comments.php"

Thanks for any help!

luv2php · #2 Jun 10th, 2008, 08:50

form action="comments.php" is where the user will head to after having clicked on the submit button. one thing you might want to change though is the method of retrieving the data processed, you are using the get method and for a comment you should probably(in my opinion) use the post method(just change get to post). then in comments.php put the comment value into a variable, insert it into a database or flat file and if there were no errors tell the user they have successfully created the comment and re-direct em or tell them their error, and in view.php open the flat file, get the data and post it to the screen or just simply retrieve the row data from your database and post it to the screen.

making any sense? It's kinda hard to explain less thoroughly :\ for me at least....

Jack Franklin · #3 Jun 10th, 2008, 09:23

Quote:

I want this to save the comments and post them onto a page called View.htm. But I don't have a clue how to do it as you may have guessed!

It's not as easy as it might seem, Basically if you want to do this the best way is to, as luv2php says, to store the comments in a database. The heading in the database might be 'Name', 'Email', 'Date', 'Comment' for example. Then using PHP, you store the data in that form into the database, and then fetch the data in view.php using PHP.

Have a look on W3Schools for PHP/MySQL beginners tutorials. It's really easy once you get the hang of it

StupidIdiot · #4 Jun 10th, 2008, 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by luv2php

making any sense? It's kinda hard to explain less thoroughly :\ for me at least....

Yeah I get what you're saying, I just have to convert your words into php and I think I'll be able to do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Franklin

Have a look on W3Schools for PHP/MySQL beginners tutorials. It's really easy once you get the hang of it

That's exactly what I'll do this instant. Thanks for the help both of you!

StupidIdiot · #5 Jun 10th, 2008, 13:28

Ok now I have a follow up question...

This is what I've got so far (mainly guess work/ripped off tutorials seeing as I know nothing about php!):

PHP: Select all


<?php
$comments_made = ("comments.txt");
$comments = file($comments_made);
$fp = fopen($comments_made , "a+");
fputs($fp , $new_comment);
fclose($fp);
echo $comments_made;
?>

(I realise that the contents of comments.txt will be repeatedly written to whatever page it's going to instead of updated as new comments are added, which probably isn't the best way of doing things).

How do I assign a variable that I have called $new_comment to the actual new comment? In other words the visitor enters whatever comment e.g. "Hello". Then I want $new_comment = "Hello", but how do I do that?

Thanks again

Jack Franklin · #6 Jun 10th, 2008, 18:53

Assuming the new comment goes in the 1st line, you could create an array of every line in the text file and find the first line. Not sure how it's done, but I can find out for you if I am on the right lines?

StupidIdiot · #7 Jun 16th, 2008, 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Franklin

Assuming the new comment goes in the 1st line, you could create an array of every line in the text file and find the first line. Not sure how it's done, but I can find out for you if I am on the right lines?

Hey sorry for the late reply Jack, I wasn't at home for the past few days, didn't have access to a computer etc. Anyway, it's ok, you don't have to find out if you're not sure! I'll have a poke around the internet myself for it. Thanks for the help

Jack Franklin · #8 Jun 16th, 2008, 22:50

Hey Idiot! :P

I have not tried this script but I've just flicked through my PHP Anthology:

PHP: Select all


$file = file(comments.txt);
$lines = count($file); //counts number of lines, creates array of  lines
$new_comment = $lines[0]; //first line is first array line, which is [0]

Let me know what happens.

StupidIdiot · #9 Sep 26th, 2008, 11:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Franklin

Let me know what happens.

Sorry I never saw this...I haven't been online since June. I'd given up on this for a while but I tried your code there and it seems to work out fine. Only time will tell if it actually works when people submit some comments (haven't the page up yet).

Thanks for the help. Better late than never!

Jack Franklin · #10 Sep 26th, 2008, 14:11

Ok kool, any probs post back.

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Comments box/guestbook php