Requirements:
- PHP 4+
- MySQL 3+
To start with we need to make a table for storing the guestbook entries, heres how you table structure should be:
Code:
CREATE TABLE `guestbook` ( `entry_id` INTEGER(6) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `fname` VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL, `location` VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL, `email` VARCHAR(60) NOT NULL, `dt` DATETIME NOT NULL, `comments` TEXT NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY(`entry_id`) ) TYPE = MYISAM;
File gbook.php :
This file will have 2 sections one which collects the form data and the other which shows the form if no data was posted.
This is how we will do it :
PHP Code:
if(isset($_POST['type']))
{
//insert into database
}
else
{
//show the form
}
Lets look at the if block first, heres what all it needs to do :
- Collect the form data into some variables
- Connect to the MySQL server
- Build the SQL query
- Execute the query
- Show the user a message
Here goes the code :
PHP Code:
//collect the posted data
$name=addslashes($_POST['fname']); //addslashes escapes the single quotes
$location=addslashes($_POST['location']);
$email=trim($_POST['email']); //trim removes the leading and trailing whitespaces
$comments=addslashes(nl2br($_POST['comments'])); //nl2br converts the newline characters to <BR/>
//connect to the database
$link=@mysql_connect("localhost","pradeep","password") or die("Could not connect : ".mysql_error());
//@ sign demystified :- the '@' tells the parser not to show any warnings
//select the database to use
@mysql_select_db("db",$link) or die("Could not select DB : ".mysql_error());
//build the query string
$sql="INSERT INTO guestbook(fname,location,email,dt,comments) VALUES('$name','$location','$email',NOW(),'$comments')";
//execute the query
@mysql_query($sql,$link) or die("Could not execute : ".mysql_error());
//show the user some message
echo "<h3>Your entry was successfully inserted into the database,<br/>Thank you.</h3>";
//close the mysql connection
mysql_close($link);
}
File showgbook.php
This file will show the guestbook entries, heres what all it needs to do:
- Connect to the MySQL server
- Bulid SQL query
- Execute the query and fetch the resultset
- Loop through the resultset and display each record in a format
Here the SQL query :
PHP Code:
$sql="SELECT fname,location,email,UNIX_TIMESTAMP(dt),comments FROM guestbook ORDER BY dt";
PHP Code:
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) //loop and fecth a single row everytime
{
echo "<br><table style=\"border:#666666 1px solid;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14px\">" ;//print the table tag into the page
echo "<tr>";
//we will display the name ans date of signing in the first row of the table
echo "<td bgcolor=\"#666666\"><font color=white>Signed by ".$row[0]." on ".date("l dS of F Y h:i:s A",$row[3])."</font></td></tr>";<br>
echo "<tr><td>Location : $row[1]</td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td>Email : $row[2]</td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td>Comments :<br> $row[4]</td></tr>";
echo "</table><br>";
}
Hope you enjoy making your own guestbook.
Below you will find the complete code.
GBOOK.PHP
Code:
<html>
<head>
<title>Guestbook</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>
<?
/*
CREATE TABLE `guestbook` (
`entry_id` INTEGER(6) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`fname` VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
`location` VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
`email` VARCHAR(60) NOT NULL,
`dt` DATETIME NOT NULL,
`comments` TEXT NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY(`entry_id`)
)
TYPE = MYISAM;
*/
if(isset($_POST['type']))//check whether the form was submitted
{
//collect the posted data
$name=addslashes($_POST['fname']); //addslashes escapes the single quotes
$location=addslashes($_POST['location']);
$email=trim($_POST['email']); //trim removes the leading and trailing whitespaces
$comments=addslashes(nl2br($_POST['comments'])); //nl2br converts the newline characters to <BR/>
//connect to the database
$link=@mysql_connect("localhost","pradeep","password") or die("Could not connect : ".mysql_error());
//@ sign demystified :- the '@' tells the parser not to show any warnings
//select the database to use
@mysql_select_db("db",$link) or die("Could not select DB : ".mysql_error());
//build the query string
$sql="INSERT INTO guestbook(fname,location,email,dt,comments) VALUES('$name','$location','$email',NOW(),'$comments')";
//execute the query
@mysql_query($sql,$link) or die("Could not execute : ".mysql_error());
//show the user some message
echo "<h3>Your entry was successfully inserted into the database,<br/>Thank you.</h3>";
//close the mysql connection
mysql_close($link);
}
else //if there was no form data simply show the form
{
?>
<form name="form1" method="post" action="gbook.php">
<table width="60%" height="36%" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" style="border:#666666 1px solid;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14px">
<tr>
<td height="9%" colspan="2" bgcolor="#666666"><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif"><strong>Fill
in my guestbook</strong></font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="10%" height="11%">Name</td>
<td><input name="fname" type="text" id="fname"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="11%">Location</td>
<td><input name="location" type="text" id="location"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="11%">Email</td>
<td><input name="email" type="text" id="email"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="45%">Comments</td>
<td><textarea name="comments" rows="5" id="comments"></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="13%">
<input name="type" type="hidden" id="type" value="goobk"></td>
<td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Sign"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
<? } //end of the if-else ?>
</body>
</html>
Code:
<html>
<head>
<title>View GUestbook</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>]
<h2>View The Guestbook</h2>
<?php
//connect to the MySQL server
$link=mysql_connect("localhost","pradeep","password") or die("Could not connect : ".mysql_error());
//select the database
mysql_select_db("db",$link) or die("Could not select DB : ".mysql_error());
//build the query
$sql"SELECT fname,location,email,UNIX_TIMESTAMP(dt),comments FROM guestbook ORDER BY dt";
//execute the query
$result=mysql_query($sql,$link);
//now we need to display the data in tabular for, so we will loop thru the resultset
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)) //loop and fecth a single row everytime
{
echo "<br><table style=\"border:#666666 1px solid;font-family:Georgia;font-size:14px\">" ;//print the table tag into the page
echo "<tr>";
//we will display the name ans date of signing in the first row of the table
echo "<td bgcolor=\"#666666\"><font color=white>Signed by ".$row[0]." on ".date("l dS of F Y h:i:s A",$row[3])."</font></td></tr>";<br>
echo "<tr><td>Location : $row[1]</td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td>Email : $row[2]</td></tr>";
echo "<tr><td>Comments :<br> $row[4]</td></tr>";
echo "</table><br>";
}
mysql_free_result($result);
mysql_close($link);
?>
</body>
</html>
