data writing assist

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 3:26 am

OK, I have bitten the bullet and decided to try and learn some of this PHP magic Wink

I thought the best way to do this would be to start out easy and create a module speedtype

So, here I am writing a function to query a table and write the resultant data to a file.
Here is the function;

Code:

global $admin_file, $prefix, $db, $sitename, $ThemeSel, $user_prefix, $module_name, $textcolor2;


    $sContent = ""; 


   $sDelim = "<-|->"; 


   include("header.php");


   GraphicAdmin();


    title("" . _SPAMLIST . "");


    OpenTable();


    echo "<tr><td><a href=\"".$admin_file.".php?op=GetList\">" . _GETSPAMLIST . "</a></td></tr>";


    echo "<tr><td><a href=\"".$module_name.$admin_file.".php?op=DoStuff\">" . _WRITEFILE . "</a></td></tr>";





   $sql = "SELECT `domain` FROM `".$prefix."_spamlist`"; 


   $result = $db->sql_query( $sql ); 


   while ( $row = $db->sql_fetchrow( $result ) ) { 


   $sDomain = stripslashes( $row['domain'] ); 


    $sContent .=$sDomain . $sDelim . "\n";


}    





$the_file = "stuff.php"; //The name of the  file


$the_path = $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]; //The path to the file   


$datafile = $the_path . "/" . $the_file;


  if ( file_exists ( $datafile ) )


    {


        echo "Datafile found at............<BR>"


         . $datafile;


   }


    else


    { echo "Data file not found........"


         . $datafile;


      }  


echo "Done with Records retrieval <br />";


    if ( is_writable ( $datafile ) )


    {


        if (!$fp = fopen ( $datafile , "w") ) die ( "Could Not Open . $datafile" );


        if (!fwrite ( $fp, $sContent ) ) die ( "Could Not Write to . $datafile" );


        if (!fclose ( $fp ) ) die ( "Could Not Close . $datafile" );


        echo "<b> entries added : </b><br /> . $sDomain";


    }


    else


    {


        echo "<font style=\"color:red;font-weight:bold;\">Entries have not written to the file.</font><br />";


    }





   CloseTable();


//$db->sql_freeresult($result); // shut down connection


include ("footer.php");


}

In essence, I am retrieving the content of the field 'domain', appending a delimeter to the end of each record and writing the result to a file ensuring no spaces or carriage returns.
The example above works well except for the fact that at the end of the (written) file I have a surplus delimter which I need to remove.

Question:
Should I re-write the DB query to use two nested loops so that the delimter loop is one less than the record loop to prevent the last delimeter being written to the file OR would it be easier/neater to alter the file writing routine to go to the oef and remove the last delimeter from it?

In either case, could you give me an example of what is needed for me to work on?
The DB schema is

Code:

`id` int(5) NOT NULL auto_increment,


  `domain` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',


  `date_added` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',


  PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)

registered · Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:38 am

Hmmmm, I thought when we last "talked" that you had a record structure of CONSTANT + Delim + "Field".

Now I am not so sure you need the delimiter?

Quote:

Question:
Should I re-write the DB query to use two nested loops so that the delimter loop is one less than the record loop to prevent the last delimeter being written to the file OR would it be easier/neater to alter the file writing routine to go to the oef and remove the last delimeter from it?

This is odd. You shouldn't be getting an extraneous row in your file. The while statement is correct. What I am now wondering is you have something in your last row of your data that is "odd"? But, that too does not seem right given that you have "NOT NULL" on that field's definition.

If you need me to look at this, let me know... PM me the details, or, actually, you may already have???? Wink

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:21 am

Things have changed slightly since we last "talked" Wink

The function above, correctly retreives the list of domains held in the table 'domains' and appends the delimeter.
Thus with the table containing sample data;
mydomain.com
anotherdomain.com
yetanotherdomain.com
it produces in the $sContent variable (array?)

Code:




mydomain.com<-|->anotherdomain.com<-|->yetanotherdomain.com<-|->

and writes this data (with no white space carriage returns etc) to a file in such a maner as it is essentially one single long line.
However, I really need to lose the last delimeter from the 'line' so it looks like and writes to the file as

Code:

mydomain.com<-|->anotherdomain.com<-|->yetanotherdomain.com

I have been looking at rtrim as a possible solution but so far have been unsuccessful in trimming of the last delimiter from the line - and it looked so easy lol.

registered · Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:54 am

If its an array, you can do nifty PHP array functions. You can use split, implode, and explode. I believe they will take off the empty elements
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.implode.php

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:59 am

My mistake, it isnt an array, it's a $variable but I'll look at your link anyway.
The rtrim function looked perfect to solve my problem to trim off the last delimeter from the $variable but I just cannot get it to work.
Back to the drawing board I guess.

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 1:09 pm

Got it!

Code:

$sContent = substr($sContent1, 0, -5);

Removes the last 5 characters of the string which works perfect. Probably not the most elegant way but seems to be the simplest.

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:13 pm

yep, that'll do it! Thanks again for the assist Evaders! I just can't get the boards fast enough... I have to figure out a way to slow everyone's keystrokes down by a factor of 100!