Building a Multi-Page Article System With ASP/PHP

Building a Multi-Page Article System With ASP/PHP - Saving Articles to the Database
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When the form is submitted, we have a number of variables available to us. They are:

• articleTitle
• articleSummary
• pageTitle1 to pageTitle20
• pageContent1 to pageContent20

If you match these up with the schema of our database, then you will see that we have all of the data we need to create entries in our database for each article. We will have 1 entry in the articles table and 1 or more entries in the pages table for each article. Each page is linked back to the article via the articleId field.

Let's now look at the code to save an article to the database.

ASP Code

sub SaveArticle()

%><!-- #INCLUDE file="db.asp" --><%

dim articleId
dim articleTitle
dim articleSummary
dim arrPages
dim objDict
dim page
dim counter
dim i

set arrPages = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
counter = 0
articleTitle = Request.Form("articleTitle")
articleSummary = Request.Form("articleSummary")

for i = 1 to 20
if Request.Form("pageTitle" & i) <> "" then
arrPages.Add Request.Form("pageTitle" & i), Request.Form("pageContent" & i)
end if
next

'Add an entry to the article table
objConn.Execute("insert into articles(title, summary) values('" & articleTitle & "', '" & articleSummary & "')")

if objConn.Errors.Count > 0 then
Response.Write "Couldn't add article"
Response.End
end if

objRS.Open("select top 1 articleId from articles order by articleId desc")
articleId = objRS.Fields(0).value

'Add one or more entries to the pages table
for each page in arrPages
objConn.Execute("insert into pages(articleId, title, content) values(" & articleId & ", '" & page & "', '" & arrPages(page) & "')")

if objConn.Errors.Count > 0 then
Response.Write "Couldn't add page"
Response.End
end if
next

%>
<font face="Verdana" size="4"><b>Article Added Successfully!</b></font><br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size="2">
<b>Details</b>
<ul>
<li>Article title: <i>"<% Response.Write articleTitle %>"</i></li>
<li>Article ID: <% Response.Write articleId %></li>
<li>Number of pages: <% Response.Write arrPages.count %></li>
</ul>
</font>
<%



end sub

PHP Code

function SaveArticle()
{
include("db.php");

$articleTitle = $_POST["articleTitle"];
$articleSummary = $_POST["articleSummary"];
$arrPages = array();
$counter = 0;

// Loop to get the pages
for($i = 1; $i < 20; $i++)
{
if($_POST["pageTitle$i"] != "")
{
$arrPages[] = array("title" => $_POST["pageTitle$i"], "content" => $_POST["pageContent$i"]);
}
}

// Add an entry to the article table
@mysql_query("insert into articles(title, summary) values('$articleTitle', '$articleSummary')") or die("Couldn't add article: " . mysql_error());

// Grab the ID of the new article record
$articleId = mysql_insert_id();

// Add one or more entries to the pages table
for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($arrPages); $i++)
{
@mysql_query("insert into pages(articleId, title, content) values($articleId, '" . $arrPages[$i]["title"] . "', '" . $arrPages[$i]["content"] . "')") or die("Couldn't add page: " . mysql_error());
}

?>
<font face="Verdana" size="4"><b>Article Added Successfully!</b></font><br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size="2">
<b>Details</b>
<ul>
<li>Article title: <i>"<?php echo $articleTitle ?>"</i></li>
<li>Article ID: <?php echo $articleId; ?></li>
<li>Number of pages: <?php echo sizeof($arrPages); ?></li>
</ul>
</font>
<?php
}

Now that we can create and save our articles, we need to display them. Let's now look at how to display a list of articles as well as each article on its own.
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