Php Shoutbox Tutorial

[Vio-Bear]

Source: http://www.media-ops.com

My first ever tutorial! (php wise...). I first made this for www.re-mi.be, which is currently down, and then updated it and now i use it on my personal site www.r.dsx3.com :P. Its a basic script, but if you would like a shout box then it is perfect :P.

There will be 5 parts to this tutorial:
>Making the SQL Table
>Creating the Form
>Creating the Action
>Creating the Output
>Creating the index

lets get started :P.

Open up Phpmyadmin, or whatever you use for sql. Run this query

CREATE TABLE `shout` (
`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`name` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`message` TEXT( 100 )  NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `id` )
);

You can change the 100 (in the paranthesis) to however many characters you would like to limit the peoples messages to.

What the query does, for people who dont get it: It creates a table called shout, and makes three rows. ID, name, and message. The name and message are inputted by the user, and the id automaticaly increases each time a person "shouts".

now create a directory called shout. You dont want things to get all ugly and disorganized :P.

Now we are going to create the form. Name this add.php

<form name="addform" method="post" action="shoutbox/action.php">
<table width="150" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td><b>Name:</b></td>
    <td><input type="text" id="name" name="name"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td><b>Msg:</b></td>
    <td><input type="text" id="message" name="message"></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<table width="150" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td align="center"><input type="submit" name="shout" title="shout" value="shout"></td>
  </tr>
</table>
</form>

I put it in the table so i could control the alignment :P. You could/should add some css, to make the inputs look pretty :P, because the default ones arent so.

Now we are going to make the action file. Name this action.php <-- :P

<?php

//fill it out according to the sql table you set up
$username="Username";
$password="Password";
$database="Database";
$table="shout";

mysql_connect(localhost,$username,$password);
@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");

$query="INSERT INTO $table (id, name, message) values ('$id','$name','$message')";
$result=mysql_query($query);
echo "Succsesfully Shouted. <a href=\"http://www.yoursite.com\">Return</a>";
?>

Make sure, when you change the href, to keep the last \ there :P. Change the username pswrd and databae names also.

[Lukeoxley]

what is a good url to use to lern php

[johnnie]

Well, after a quick Google on Learning PHP, I found this:
http://www.communitymx.com/content/a....cfm?cid=D5084

which seems useful, also you can try http://php.net

However, this thread was submitted in 2005, so don't expect a reply from the original poster.

And I believe a Moderator / Staff Member will probably tell you to start a new thread, rather than replying to very old threads

[Mitch]

Start a new thread ;).

[cancer10]

Just for your information people,

This shoutbox wont work since it does not have an auto refresh which would populate the new messages to other visitors.

[bfsog]

The last post was over 8 months ago.

[unclekyky]

This tutorial was from back in 2005, before AJAX corroded our perceptions of what a shoutbox is. Why does a shoutbox need to auto-refresh? That is a negligible feature for something that is not supposed to be used as a formal discussion platform.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend following this tutorial. It works, but it appears to rely on register_globals to be on and doesn't sanitize input.