This tutorial shows the techniques required to make a simple PHP forum. It consists of four pages, one for displaying the forums, one for the topics, one for the replies and finally a page to post new topcis / replies.
Database
Below are the database tables that are required for this code.CREATE TABLE `main` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`name` text NOT NULL,
`lastposter` varchar(200) NOT NULL,
`lastpostdate` int(11) NOT NULL,
`topics` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`replies` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
)
CREATE TABLE `replies` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`topicid` int(11) unsigned,
`message` text NOT NULL,
`subject` text NOT NULL,
`poster` text NOT NULL,
`date` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
)
CREATE TABLE `topics` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`forumid` int(11) unsigned,
`message` text NOT NULL,
`subject` text NOT NULL,
`poster` text NOT NULL,
`date` int(11) NOT NULL,
`lastposter` varchar(200) NOT NULL,
`lastpostdate` int(11) NOT NULL,
`replies` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
)Displaying the forum list
This simple forum will consist of three elements. The first will be a list of forums, then each forum will have a list of topics and finally each topic will have a number of replies. We firstly need to set up the list of forums, these can be manually added to the database.mysql_connect('localhost','user','password');
mysql_select_db('db');
$query1 = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM main ORDER BY id DESC'); while ($output1 = mysql_fetch_assoc($query1))topics.php.echo '<td><a href="topics.php?id='.$output1['id'].'">'.$output1['name'].'</a></td>';Displaying topics
Now that the basic forums are set up we can list the topics for each one. The link from the main page sets an id variable that we can use to select the appropriate topics.ob_start();
$id = (int) $_GET['id'];
if ($id < 1)
{
header('Location: forum.php');
exit();
}
ob_end_clean();ob_start()) to ensure that no headers are sent because if the topic id given is less than one, we will redirect the user to the main forum page.mysql_connect('localhost','user','password');
mysql_select_db('db');
$output1 = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT name FROM main WHERE id = $id"));
echo $output1['name'];$query2 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM topics WHERE forumid = '$id' ORDER BY id DESC");
$query3 = mysql_num_rows($query2);forumid) which links each topic to the id of the forum. Above the number of topics for the given forum is found. If there are no topics a message is displayed, otherwise the topics are printed out.if ($query3 == 0)
echo '<td colspan="5">No Topics</td>';replies.php. We will use mysql_fetch_assoc because we will refer to the fields in the array by name rather then by number.while ($output2 = mysql_fetch_assoc($query2))
echo '<td><a href="replies.php?id='.$output2['id'].'">'.$output2['subject'].'</a></td>';if(empty($output2['lastposter']))
echo '<td colspan="2">No replies</td>';
else {
echo '<td>'.$output2['lastposter'].' @ '.date('d-m-y G:i', $output2['lastpostdate']).'</td>';
echo '<td>'.$output2['replies'].'</td>';
}<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" action="forumpost.php?type=topics&id=<? echo $id; ?>">Displaying replies
This page is very similar to the topics page. It gets an id as an input which it uses to get all the replies. Each reply has a foreign key (topicid) which links to a particular topic and this is used to get all the relevant replies.<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" action="forumpost.php?type=replies&id=<? echo $id; ?>">Posting replies
Now that we have have set up the pages for the forum, topics and replies we need a page that will insert the new topics and replies into the database.ob_start();
$id = (int) $_GET['id'];
$type = $_GET['type'];
if ($id < 1 || ($type != 'replies' && $type != 'topics'))
{
header('Location: forum.php');
exit();
}
ob_end_clean();function clear($message)
{
if(!get_magic_quotes_gpc())
$message = addslashes($message);
$message = strip_tags($message);
$message = htmlentities($message);
return trim($message);
}if($type == 'topics')
{
$query = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT topics FROM main WHERE id = '$id'"));
$topics = $query['topics'] + 1;
mysql_query("UPDATE main SET topics = '$topics', lastposter = '$poster',
lastpostdate = '$date' WHERE id = '$id'");
mysql_query("INSERT INTO topics (id , forumid , message , subject, poster,
date, lastposter, lastpostdate, replies)
VALUES ('', '$id', '$message', '$subject','$poster', '$date', '', '', '0')");
echo 'Topic Posted.<a href="topics.php?id='.$id.'">View Topic</a>';else
{
$query = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT replies, forumid FROM topics WHERE id = '$id'"));
$replies = $query['replies'] + 1;
$id2 = $query['forumid'];
mysql_query("UPDATE topics SET replies = '$replies', lastposter = '$poster',
lastpostdate = '$date' WHERE id = '$id'");
$query = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT replies FROM main WHERE id = '$id2'"));
$replies = $query['replies'] + 1;
mysql_query("UPDATE main SET replies = '$replies', lastposter = '$poster',
lastpostdate = '$date' WHERE id = '$id2'");
mysql_query("INSERT INTO replies (id , topicid, message, subject, poster, date)
VALUES ('', '$id', '$message', '$subject','$poster', '$date')");
echo 'Reply Posted.<a href="replies.php?id='.$id.'">View Reply</a>';Downloads
Source :
http://www.pixelcode.co.uk/tutorials/Simple+PHP+forum.html
