How do I output information from a PHP page to an HTML page?

SentralOrigin · 01-09-2009, 04:12 PM

I have a .php web page with these lines:

Code:

//gather all the comments
$commentquery = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE tutorialid='$tutid' ORDER BY date DESC") or die(mysql_error());

//count all the comments for the total
$commentNum = mysql_num_rows($commentquery);

I want the value of $commentNum which is going to be a number, to be displayed on another page that's written in HTML (.html extension) from the .php page.

How can I transfer this number over?

BrianK · 01-09-2009, 04:46 PM

You can have php modify the html file.

You can create a link to the html file with GET vars in the link, then have something like javascript in the html file display the GET vars.

Is there a reason that html file needs to be an html file? This may be a lot easier if it were a php file. You know, you can simply rename a .html file to a .php file & it will display the same.... then you can write php code iside of a php tag in the file & it will work the way you may expect.

rsciw · 01-09-2009, 08:51 PM

if it does need to be a .html file (for whatever reason, such as SEO [.html file is better than xyz.php?a=b&c=d&e=f etc...] ) but want to insert .php in there, then either

a) enable mod_rewrite and tweak around
or
b) add .html to this line in your apache configuration "AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml .php3"

while b) is faster / simpler, a) in the end is cleaner, and also has other benefits

paulsm4 · 01-10-2009, 01:54 AM

Hi -

The whole point of PHP is that it lets you modify your HTML before you send it to the server!

Suggestion: name *all* the pages on your site ".php". Even if they're pure HTML. For example:

Code:

<html>
<head>
  <title>Hello world</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello World
</body>
</html>
  <= Create this page as "hello.php"

Then, in your scenario, you can modify it like this:

Code:

<html>
<head>
  <title>Hello world</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello World
<?php
  //gather all the comments
  $commentquery = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE tutorialid='$tutid' ORDER BY date DESC") or die(mysql_error());

  //count all the comments for the total
  $commentNum = mysql_num_rows($commentquery);

  // Display results
  if ($commentNum == 0) {  
    echo "<p>There were no comments</p>";
  }
  else {
    echo "<p>There were $CommentNum comments</p>";
 ?>
</body>
</html>

'Hope that helps .. PSM

PS:
Please consider the suggestion about looking at bulletin board software I made in the previous post. But I'm glad your looking at mySQL to store your comments, and it looks like you're making great progress!