How to get a text string from sql database to use in html code

Question

I want to get stings form a mysql server to use as text on my webpage. That way I can edit the text without editing the html file.

Problem is that the code I have to get the string is quite long, and I don't want to paste it everywhere on the page.

I would also like a tip on how to get just one datafield from the server, and not the whole column like I do here.

So this is what I got. And what I think is to write a function I can call from all the places I want the webpage to get a string or field from the sqlserver. But I don't know how. Can anyone help me?

<?php
$con=mysqli_connect("localhost","user..", "passwd..","db");
// Check connection
if (mysqli_connect_errno())
    {
    echo "Failed to connect to MySQL: " . mysqli_connect_error();
    }
$sql = "SELECT topic FROM web_content";
$result = $con->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) 
    {
    // output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) 
        {
        echo $row["topic"]. "<br>";
        }
    } else 
    {
         echo "error";
    }
$con->close();
?>

arkascha · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-08 12:26:41Z

4

Problem is that the code I have to get the string is quite long, and i dont want to paste it everywhere on the page.

Put the code into a function, call that function wherever you need to. Then it is just a single line you have to insert.

PHP:

<?php
function connect() {
    $con=mysqli_connect("localhost","user..", "passwd..","db");
    // Check connection
    if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
        echo "Failed to connect to MySQL: " . mysqli_connect_error();
    } else {
        return $con;
    }
}

function renderContent($con) {
    $sql = "SELECT topic FROM web_content";
    $result = $con->query($sql);

    if ($con && ($result->num_rows > 0)) 
    {
        // output data of each row
        while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) 
        {
            echo $row["topic"]. "<br>";
        }
    } else {
         echo "error";
    }
}

HTML:

<?php $con = connect(); ?>
[...]
<div>
    <?php renderContent($con); ?>
</div>
[...]

I would also like a tip on how to get just one datafield from the server, and not the whole coloumn like i do here.

Not the whole column would mean not all rows, but one or some selected ones. That means you are looking for sqls ''WHERE'' clause.

SELECT topic FROM web_content WHERE <where clause>;

Where <where clause> is some clause to narrow down the result set. For example you can narrow down to topics containing some string: ... WHERE topid LIKE '%word%'; or by the IDs are a date range of the entries in your table. You should take a look into the documentation of the query syntax for an explanation: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/select.html

Obviously all of this is just a rough sketch of what you are looking for. Lots of things need improving. Using exceptions for error handling is one thing, just to give an example...

edited Mar 8, 2015 at 12:26

answered Mar 8, 2015 at 12:13

arkascha

43.2k8 gold badges61 silver badges97 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

arkascha Over a year ago

Well this obviously means that you dit not feed a correct database object into the function renderContent(). Several possible reasons: the database connection fails, has been closed inbetween or you simply did not really use the code above. As said: this is far from perfect. It is meant to give you an idea of how to approach this. You cannot simply take such code and expect everything to work smoothly. You have to understand and adapt such code for your usage.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to get a text string from sql database to use in html code

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related