Hello

 

I'm making a custom blog - nothing fancy just basic and wondered about adding comments. How would I go about doing this? Would I have a separate database for each blog entry?

 

Hopefully not, preferably I will be able to store them in the same database. What I'm looking to do (I hope this is possible) for every comment that is put into the database, for it to have an auto_increment but for each "BlogID".

 

So, for example when "BlogID" is 1, each row entry would go up by one for where "BlogID" is 1 ONLY, so when "BlogID" is 2, each row entry would go up by one also, but not in the same sequence, if you know what I mean.

 

I was thinking of storing in the same database, then getting the comments for each blog by doing

 

$comment_query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE BlogID = '".$_GET['id']."'");

 

Heh, doubt I've explained that well... but I tried

 

Thank you.

Have a separate table, in this table (lets say 'blog_comments') you can have

 

id

blogid

username

email

comment

 

or something like this. the important part is blogid... When you do a query to show a blog post, then you also query the 'blog_comments' WHERE blogid is the ID of the blogpost in your blog table.

 

I think in your post you had the concept right. You can have many comment entries all over the place, as long as they have a way to point back to the blog post they're for.

Okay, I've done something along those lines, but I'm having trouble displaying the comments :s Probably a simple problem, I'll go and have another look. If not, I'll post on here

I think you need to do a little research into database theory.

 

Focus on what's known as "foreign keys".

 

ID fields are keys to a specific entry in a specific table of a database - they are identifiers.

 

When you want to link two seperate tables together (i.e. blog_entry and blog_comment or whatever you have) you store a foreign key to reference one table from the other.

 

Therefore you might have a database structure like this:

 

blog_entry

id (primary key)

author

text

date

 

blog_comment

id (primary key)

blog_entry_id (foreign key)

author

text

date

 

therefore each comment stores a reference to the blog entry it belongs to via the blog_entry_id foreign key.

 

This is the normal way of doing things when writing php and mySQL and allows you to do exactly what you are getting at. But if you are struggling, what you need to know are the proper names for what you are doing so you can google, or ask more specific questions!

Thanks ErisDS, yea I know I'm terrible at explaining things which I'm not sure about... I've done what you've suggested, but I'm having a bit of trouble displaying them.

 

		$comment_query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE BlogID = '".$_GET['id']."'");
	$row_comment = mysql_fetch_array($comment_query);
	while($comment = mysql_fetch_array($comment_query)) {
		echo "<p>".$row_comment['Comment']."</p>";
	}

 

Can you see anything wrong here?

No but then I have no idea what your data structure is.

 

It's not normal to use capitalisation like that though - usually lowercase and underscored is the norm.

Ok, this is what it looks like.

 

 

		//Comments
	$comment_query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE BlogID = '".$_GET['id']."'");
	$row_comment = mysql_fetch_array($comment_query);
	while($comment = mysql_fetch_array($comment_query)) {
		echo "<p>".$row_comment['Comment']."</p>";
	}

 

I have 7 comment entries for BlogID 4 (not shown in picture above), and it's repeating "blog id 4" (5th entry shown above) 7 times, and I'm really not sure why. Any ideas?

Uhh.. internet just went off, and Notepad++ crashed, I lost everything I had. Why... why.

 

Looks like I'm going to have to start from scratch... why would it delete it off the server? Urrghh

 

EDIT: :D :D :D It saved it locally

Sorry, I didn't actually look at your code properly:

 

These lines don't make sense:

 

		
$row_comment = mysql_fetch_array($comment_query);
while($comment = mysql_fetch_array($comment_query)) {
 echo "<p>".$row_comment['Comment']."</p>";
}

 

Your fetching the results as an array, then you're fetching them again in a loop, but displaying only the original result...

 

This should work (variables renamed to be descriptive of what they contain):

		
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE BlogID = '".$_GET['id']."'");
	while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
		echo "<p>".$row['Comment']."</p>";
	}

 

You also need to check to make sure that $_GET['id'] is returning what you expect

Thank you so much ErisDS!

 

Also thanks ElanMan

Edit: Eris beat me to it

I would look at cleaning you $_GET data.

You also need to check to make sure that $_GET['id'] is returning what you expect

 

I would look at cleaning you $_GET data.

 

To expand: $_GET will not always be what you expect. Any input that is EVER sent from a 3rd party such as another website, even HTML input fields with type="hidden". You can use functions such as

 

$variable = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['variable']);

 

Another way to filter queries meant for database is great for when you want to optimize your pages because in best practice you should only ever connect to your database when you need too.

 

Security is very important when your sites with scripts are exposed to the public.