Textpattern CMS

#1 2008-10-27 21:30:29

charlbury

New Member

Registered: 2008-10-04

Posts: 2

Adding, updating and reading from a database table

Hallo

I’m putting together a site that will show several tables of information. The information will be updated quite regularly.

The info would clearly be best held in a couple of database tables and read from those tables whenever the page is displayed.

Can anyone point me in the direction of information about how to create TextPattern pages that use PHP to read data from MYSQL database tables?

Also, a couple of specific questions.

1. Is it best to create any new tables in the textpattern database alongside the textpattern tables, or, is it best to create the data tables in a new database completely separate from the textpattern database?

2. Would it be best to look for a plugin to help me write to and read from database tables? Does one exist? Or just code the database calls directly into a textpattern page?

Thanks

Last edited by charlbury (2008-10-27 21:31:09)

#2 2008-10-31 12:53:48

Bloke

Developer

From: Leeds, UK

Registered: 2006-01-29

Posts: 11,453

Website GitHub

Re: Adding, updating and reading from a database table

charlbury wrote:

Can anyone point me in the direction of information about how to create TextPattern pages that use PHP to read data from MYSQL database tables?

I think there are a couple of resources in Textbook that I can’t find right now (typical!) on how to interact with a database but the core functions you need are found in lib/txplib_db.php. All the safe_* functions are there to help you get stuff in and out of the database. The safe_rows / safe_row and safe_column functions are best for getting simple stuff in and out, but if you want complete control then safe_query is your friend:

<txp:php>
  global $whatever_globals_you_need;
  $rs = safe_query("Select * from my_new_table WHERE blah blah");
  foreach ($rs as $row) {
    // Do some stuff with $row
  }
</txp:php>

Is it best to create any new tables in the textpattern database alongside the textpattern tables

I find so, yes. Simply because you don’t have to worry about CONNECTing to them, as it’s done for you by TXP.

Would it be best to look for a plugin to help me write to and read from database tables?

You could try smd_query written for just such a purpose :-)

Hope that helps.

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