PHP question

failsafe · 27-11-2007 5:30pm #1

I was wondering if anyone could help cast a quick glance over this. It's the second half of a comment page. The first half has a form that allows a user to submit a comment, and this half displays the comments.

The top half is displaying and functioning correctly, but the bottom half of the page isn't working at all. Given that I use the same $connection variable and database labels (name, comment, email etc.) in the top half and they function, I'm almost sure that the problem isn't with them.

When I view the source code of the page, I don't see the </table></body></html> at the end, so I'm guessing that I'm missing a ' or ; or something like that in the PHP code. The page doesn't throw up any errors either, this section just remains blank:

<html>
<body>
<table width="70&#37;" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2">

<?php
	$query = "SELECT * FROM guestbook ORDER BY autoid"; 
	$result = mysql_query ($query, $connection);
	
	for ($i = 0; $i < mysql_num_rows ($result); $i++)
	{
	    $name = mysql_result($result, $i, "name");
		$email = mysql_result($result, $i, "email");
		$email_len = strinlen ($email);
	    $comment = mysql_result($result, $i, "comment");
	    $date = mysql_result($result, $i, "date_auto");
		$show_date = date ("H:i:s m/d/Y", $date);
		
		
		echo '
		<tr>
		<td width ="100%" bgcolor= "eeeeee">
		<font face = "ariel" size = "2">';
		if ($email_len > 0)
		{
			echo '<b>Name: </b> <a href="mailto:'.$email.'">'.$name.'</a>';
		}
		else
		{
			echo '<b>Name: </b>'.$name;
		}
		echo ' <br>
			<b>Comments:</b>'.$comment.'
			</font>
			<td>
			<td width="1%" valign="top" nowrap bgcolor ="eeeeee">
			<font face = "arial" size = "2">
			<b>Date: </b>'.$show_date.'
			</font>
			</td>
		</tr>
		';
	}
?>

</table>
</body>
</html>

This half of the page actually starts with <table.... but I included the head and body tags as they are at the top of the page.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Gordon · 27-11-2007 6:30pm

Strange, I get the </table></body></html> at the end.

failsafe · 27-11-2007 7:02pm

</snip>

If you view the source code on that page it ends with the start of the bit i've pasted, even though all of the code i've pasted is in guestbook.php

cgarvey · 27-11-2007 7:19pm

how about commenting out, or temporarily removing, some/most/all of the code between the PHP tags and put it back in slowly to narrow the problem down?

failsafe · 27-11-2007 8:11pm

*EDIT: I found the source of my problem, I had "stinlen" as opposed to "strlen" for the string length function! cgarvey, thanks a mil for the advice, never thought of that and it helped me spot the problem. I think this tells me I need to switch from notepad to an editor with syntax highlighting!

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried that out and found the following:

I put <h1>Test</h1> below the php section. I could see it fine with all the php part commented out. I could see it when I started adding back several pieces until I got as far as

<?php
	$query = "SELECT * FROM guestbook ORDER BY date_auto"; 
	$result = mysql_query ($query, $connection);
	
	for ($i = 0; $i < mysql_num_rows ($result); $i++)
	{
	    $name = mysql_result ($result, $i, "name");
	    $email = mysql_result ($result, $i, "email");
		$email_len = strinlen ($email);
	    $comment = mysql_result ($result, $i, "comment");
	    $date = mysql_result ($result, $i, "date_auto");
		$show_date = date ("H:i:s m/d/Y", $date);
		
		
#		echo '
#		<tr>
#		<td width ="100&#37;" bgcolor= "eeeeee">
#		<font face = "ariel" size = "2">';
#		if ($email_len > 0)
#		{
#			echo '<b>Name: </b> <a href="mailto:'.$email.'">'.$name.'</a>';
#		}
#		else
#		{
#			echo '<b>Name: </b>'.$name;
#		}
#		echo ' <br>
#			<b>Comments:</b>'.$comment.'
#			</font>
#			<td>
#			<td width="1%" valign="top" nowrap bgcolor ="eeeeee">
#			<font face = "arial" size = "2">
#			<b>Date: </b>'.$show_date.'
#			</font>
#			</td>
#		</tr>
#		';
	}
?>

<h1>Test</h1>

and then it disappeared. My php skills aren't very good as I'm only starting out, should a "for" function cause a problem if there's no action linked to it, or have I potentially discovered the root of my problem?

CuLT · 27-11-2007 8:13pm

At a quick glance, there are several spelling mistakes in that code, "strinlen" being a nonexistant function in PHP, "ariel" being a non-existant font on most systems, no # before the colour codes... and that's about where I stopped.

Edit: Also you're using HTML4.0 constructs (not causing the problem but it's bad style). Your problem is probably that strinlen never resolves because it should be strlen.

randombar · 27-11-2007 10:48pm

html 4.0 constructs?

also when I'm coding in php sounds stupid but to find errors I put

echo "pass1";
echo "pass2";

throughout the code to identify how far it gets!

CuLT · 28-11-2007 1:13am

Realistically, nobody should be using <FONT FACE="whatever"> on the brink of the year 2008.