New to PHP

[Ennis Olson]

I'm new to PHP and would like to read up on some basics. Can anyone recommend resources for learning PHP?

Also, I'd like to know how to write a basic query for a specific field for the members on my site. I've gone through the tutorials, but it would be helpful to see a complete php file with a basic query that I can execute.

Can anyone help me out?

thanks!

[Ernie H.]

Ennis - as far as PHP resources are concerned, you may want to start with the following:
http://www.webmonkey.com/tutorial/PHP_Tutorial_for_Beginners
http://php.net/

(If anyone has any better resources - and I'm sure you guys do - feel free to chip in.) As far as basic queries, what kind of examples are you going for? -Ernie

[Ennis Olson]

Thanks Ernie - I'll take a look those sites.

I'm just looking for something that returned data on a user. For example, I know the bithdate info is stored as my.birthdate. what would a php file look like that would query that field and display the results. i'm just trying to understand syntax, so even if I could just put a birthdate.php file in my root directory which only runs a query that pulls values from that field would be enough.

thanks for the help - much appreciated!

[Ernie H.]

Hi there Ennis. Okay, I wrote up a tiny program that uses an XN_Query object (the way we get stuff from the database within Ning - specifically for Ning at that) to do just that. I attached it as a file, and if you'd like, you can SFTP the program into your root directory of your social network and run it as a PHP file that way, just to see what it does.

Here's the text of the code:

<?php


/* We're using a XN_Query command that will pull out

All content, of type 'USER', or all user objects. */

$results = XN_Query::create('Content')

->filter('type', '=', 'User')

->execute();



foreach($results as $r) {

// This command displays all attributes in the user object. If it's under the my attribute

// then it's pulled by "my->attributeName." Comment this out if you want.

echo $r->debugHtml();



echo "My full name: [" . $r->my->fullName . "]<br>";

echo "My full name: [" . $r->my->birthdate . "]<br>";

}

?>

[Ennis Olson]

Thank you! much appreciated!

[Devin]

Hi Ennis!

I have attached the file bday.php, which performs a search on your network and prints out all the birthdays it finds. It is a basic script, but it should get you going in the right direction. It uses the Ning PHP API, specifically XN_Query.

Good Luck! Devin

[Ennis Olson]

thank you! I appreciate the help!