I am curious what path I should take to accomplish the following. I want multiple computers at one location to be able to view and make changes to data inside a mysql DB with a web browser. I dont have extensive knowledge in this area, but from what I do remember this was very difficult if not impossible.
Example: Lets say I have a record for John and I want 2 computers to be able to edit Johns record. Please note that the computers will not be editing the same portion of Johns record. Lets say one record is changing a status from need to be called to called and the other computer is changing the status of need to be ordered to ordered.
I want a solution that could natively handle this.
My current knowledge is building web interfaces with PHP and SQL. I would like to use these languages as I have some prior knowledge.
So my question: Is this possible? If, so exactly how would it work(flow of info)?
There are several ways that you can accomplish this. There's already some great PHP database editing software packages out there (phpMyAdmin).
To handle this in code though you can either use Transactions (depending on what flavor of SQL you're using this would be done differently)
One of the easier ways to ensure that you don't have people's data clashing with one another is just by adding additional where clauses to your statement.
Lets say you have a user record and you want to update the last name from Smith to Bill, and the user ID is 4.
Instead of writing
UPDATE users SET lastName='Bill' WHERE id='4'
You would add in:
UPDATE users SET lastName='Bill' WHERE id='4' AND lastName='Smith'
That way if someone else updates the last name field while you're working on it, your query will fail and you'll have to re-enter the data, thus faking a transaction
Use Transactions. Updating a single record at the exact same time isn't really supported, but applying one transaction followed immediately by another certainly is. This is native to MySQL.
START TRANSACTION;
SELECT #A:=SUM(salary) FROM table1 WHERE type=1;
UPDATE table2 SET summary=#A WHERE type=1;
COMMIT;
One other thing to do is the old desktop approach. Wich is almost mannualy control the flow of modifications. I will show:
Say that you have a client table with the fields id, firstname, lastname, age. In order to control multiple users updates you will add the version integer default 0 field to this table.
When you populate the object on the form to an user you will also store the actual version that the user has selected.
So lets assume that your client table is like this:
id firstname lastname age version
1 Tomas Luv 20 0
2 Lucas Duh 22 0
3 Christian Bah 30 0
When the user select the client with the id=1 the version of this row is, in this moment, 0. Then the user update the lastname of this client to Bob and submit it.
Here comes the magic:
Create a trigger (before update) that will check the current version of that registry with the version that the user previously selected, something like this (this is just pseudo code, as I'm doing it from my head):
create trigger check_client_version on client before update as
begin
if new.version != old.version then
throw some error saying that a modification already was done;
else
new.version = old.version + 1;
end if;
end;
On the application you check if the update has this error and inform to user that someone else made change on the registry he try to change.
So with the given example it would be like:
1 - The user A selected the row 1 and start editing it
2 - At the same time the user B selected the row 1 and save it before the user A
3 - The user A try to save his modifications and get the error from the application
On this context the user A has the version field pointed to 0 also is the user B but when the user B save the registry it now is 1 and when the user A try to save it it will fail because of the check trigger.
The problem with this approch is that you will have to have a before update trigger to every table in your model or at least the one you are concerned with.
Related
Well, I'm afraid that I will not be able to post a minimum reproducible example, and for that I apologize. But, here goes nothing.
Ours is a weekly prepared meals service. I track order volume in many ways. Here is the structure of the relevant table:
So then I utilize the highlighted fields in many ways, such as indicating to delivery drivers if a customer is returning from the prior order being more than a month ago (last_order_w - prev_order_w > 4), for instance.
Lately I have been noticing that the data is not consistently updating properly. In the past 3 weeks, I would say it is an occurrence of 5%. If it were more consistent, I would be more confident in my ability to track down the issue, but I am not even sure how to provoke it, as I only really notice it after the fact.
The code that should cause the update is below:
<?php
//retrieve and iterate over IDs of orders placed since last synchronization.
$newOrders=array_map('reset',$dbh->query("select id from wp_posts where id > (select max(synced) from fitaf_weeks) and post_type='shop_order' and post_status='wc-processing'")->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_NUM));
foreach($newOrders as $no){
//retrieve the metadata for the current order
$newMetas=array_map('reset',$dbh->query("select meta_key,meta_value from wp_postmeta where post_id=$no")->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_GROUP|PDO::FETCH_UNIQUE));
//check if the current order is associated with an existing customer
$exist=$dbh->query("select * from fitaf_customers where id=".$newMetas['_customer_user'])->fetch();
//if not, gather the information we want to store from this post
$noExist=[$newMetas['_customer_user'],$newMetas['_shipping_first_name'],$newMetas['_shipping_last_name'],$newMetas['_shipping_address_1'],(strlen($newMetas['_shipping_address_2'])==0?NULL:$newMetas['_shipping_address_2']),$newMetas['_shipping_city'],$newMetas['_shipping_state'],$newMetas['_shipping_postcode'],$phone,$newMetas['_billing_email'],1,1,$no,$newMetas['_paid_date'],$week[3],$newMetas['_order_total']];
if($exist){
//if we found a record in the customer table, retrieve the data we want to modify
$oldO=$dbh->query("select last_order_id,last_order,last_order_w,lo,num_orders from fitaf_customers where id=".$newMetas['_customer_user'])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_GROUP|PDO::FETCH_ASSOC|PDO::FETCH_UNIQUE);
//make changes to the retrieved data, and make sure we are storing the most recently used delivery address and prepare the data points for the update command
$exists=[$phone,$newMetas['_shipping_first_name'],$newMetas['_shipping_last_name'],$newMetas['_shipping_postcode'],$newMetas['_shipping_address_1'],(strlen($newMetas['_shipping_address_2'])==0?NULL:$newMetas['_shipping_address_2']),$newMetas['_shipping_city'],$newMetas['_shipping_state'],$newMetas['_paid_date'],$no,$week[3],$oldO['last_order'],$oldO['last_order_id'],$oldO['last_order_w'],($oldO['num_orders']+1),($oldO['lo']+$newMetas['_order_total']),$newMetas['_customer_user']];
}
if(!$exist){
//if the customer did not exist, perform an insert
$dbh->prepare("insert into fitaf_customers(id,fname,lname,addr1,addr2,city,state,zip,phone,email,num_orders,num_weeks,last_order_id,last_order,last_order_w,lo) values(?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)")->execute($noExist);
}
else{
//if the customer did exist, update their data
$dbh->prepare("update fitaf_customers set phone=?,fname=?,lname=?,zip=?,addr1=?,addr2=?,city=?,`state`=?,last_order=?,last_order_id=?,last_order_w=?,prev_order=?,prev_order_id=?,prev_order_w=?,num_orders=?,lo=? where id=?")->execute($exists);
}
}
//finally retrieve the most recent post ID and update the field we check against when the syncornization script runs
$lastPlaced=$dbh->query('select max(id) from wp_posts where post_type="shop_order"')->fetch()[0];
$updateSync=$dbh-> query("update fitaf_weeks set synced=$lastPlaced order by id desc limit 1");
?>
Unfortunately I don't have any relevant error logs to show, however, as I documented the code for this post, I realized a potential shortcoming. I should be utilizing the data retrieved from the initial query of new posts, rather than a selecting the highest post id after performing this logic. However, I have timers running on my scripts, and this section hasn't taken over 3 seconds to run in a long time. So it seems unlikely, that the script, which runs on a cron every 5 minutes, is experiencing this unintended overlap?
While I have made the change to pop the highest ID off of $newOrders, and hope it solves the issue, I am still curious to see if anyone has any insights on what could cause this logic to fail at such a low occurrence.
It seems likely your problem comes from race conditions between multiple operations accessing your db.
First of all, your last few lines of code do SELECT MAX(ID) and then uses that value to update something. You Can't Do That™. If somebody else adds a row to that wp_posts table anytime after the entry you think is relevant, you'll use the wrong ID. I don't understand your app well enough to recommend a fix. But I do know this is a serious and notorious problem.
You have another possible race condition as well. Your logic is this:
SELECT something.
make a decision based on what you SELECTED.
INSERT or UPDATE based on that decision.
If some other operation, done by some other user of the db, intervenes between step 1 and step 3, your decision might be wrong.
You fix this with a db transaction. The ->beginTransaction() operation, well, begins the transaction. The ->commit() operation concludes it. And, the SELECT operation you use for step one should say SELECT ... FOR UPDATE.
I am new in forum, and need some help to do one functionality for my unity game. I am trying to save the progress of the player in one mysql database, like this:
userid level stars
29 1 2
29 2 1
45 1 3
50 1 2
50 2 3
50 3 1
29 3 3
so the script send the userid provided by the user registration in the begining of the game. and for each level he complete, the script send the number of the level, and the amount of stars collected in the level..
the problem and question is, how I configure this in the php script and mysql database to save the information only once? because if the player with the id 50 play the first level, will add a line with the information, but if the same player play the first level again and change the amount of stars, I dont want a new line, just update the stars amount.
I take a look in the INDEX, UNIQUE, PRIMARY, FULLTEXT, SPATIAL functions but dont figured out what is the correct combination and how to put in the php script, and take a look in other questions in the forum but nothing like this.
thanks for the help!
I recommend you use http://redis.io/ (in-memory data structure store, used as database, cache and message broker) to save progress in the games.
First you want an unique index on the combination (userid, level) and then you want to do an update if the combination exists and an insert otherwise.
For how to create the unique index please take a look at How do I specify unique constraint for multiple columns in MySQL?
For how to code the SQL query to do update/insert please take a look at SQL: If Exists Update Else Insert
The article above uses Microsoft SQL syntax. In PHP you can code this by issuing the query and then using mysql_affected_rows to see how many rows where affected. If 0 rows where affected then you issue the INSERT query from PHP.
in pseudo code you need to do something like this in SQL.
UPDATE $table set column=value WHERE id=$ID
Hi brayan actually the problems is that no one will write code for you, you have to do it yourself. I guess you are unaware with SQL i.e., you asked that
how I configure this in the php script and mysql database to save the
information only once? because if the player with the id 50 play the
first level, will add a line with the information, but if the same
player play the first level again and change the amount of stars, I
dont want a new line, just update the stars amount.
Anyhow You first required some basic understanding of SQL and PHP with Unity. I will recommend you this Guide Server_Side_Highscores of unityWiki it help you to make database and server logic intergartion with PHP.
Now for your Second important part of question.
You have to update user code after each level completion.Or you can simply ask to user about socre save.
Before inserting new record into the database you have to check that userId with level id alread exist or not. some thing like this
Select userid, level, stars
from youTableName
where userid = ?
and level = ?
if the above query return empty response then you simply need to add the record
INSERT INTO table_name (userid, level, stars)
VALUES (value1,value2,value3);
Otherwise you have to update that specific column.
I have a small PHP function on my website which basically does 3 things:
check if user is logged in
if yes, check if he has the right to do this action (DB Select)
if yes, do the related action (DB Insert/Update)
If I have several users connected at the same time on my website that try to access this specific function, is there any possibility of concurrency problem, like we can have in Java for example? I've seen some examples about semaphore or native PHP synchronization, but is it relevant for this case?
My PHP code is below:
if ( user is logged ) {
sql execution : "SELECT....."
if(sql select give no results){
sql execution : "INSERT....."
}else if(sql select give 1 result){
if(selected column from result is >= 1){
sql execution : "UPDATE....."
}
}else{
nothing here....
}
}else{
nothing important here...
}
Each user who accesses your website is running a dedicated PHP process. So, you do not need semaphores or anything like that. Taking care of the simultaneous access issues is your database's problem.
Not in PHP. But you might have users inserting or updating the same content.
You have to make shure this does not happen.
So if you have them update their user profile only the user can access. No collision will occur.
BUT if they are editing content like in a Content-Management System... they can overwrite each others edits. Then you have to implement some locking mechanism.
For example(there are a lot of ways...) if you write an update on the content keeping the current time and user.
Then the user has a lock on the content for maybe 10 min. You should show the (in this case) 10 min countdown in the frontend to the user. And a cancel button to unlock the content and ... you probably get the idea
If another person tries to load the content in those 10 min .. it gets an error. "user xy is already... lock expires at xx:xx"
Hope this helps.
In general, it is not safe to decide whether to INSERT or UPDATE based on a SELECT result, because a concurrent PHP process can INSERT the row after you executed your SELECT and saw no row in the table.
There are two solutions. Solution number one is to use REPLACE or INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE. These two query types are "atomic" from perspective of your script, and solve most cases. REPLACE tries to insert the row, but if it hits a duplicate key it replaces the conflicting existing row with the values you provide, INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE is a little bit more sophisticated, but is used in a similar situations. See the documentation here:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/insert-on-duplicate.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/replace.html
For example, if you have a table product_descriptions, and want to insert a product with ID = 5 and a certain description, but if a product with ID 5 already exists, you want to update the description, then you can just execute the following query (assuming there's a UNIQUE or PRIMARY key on ID):
REPLACE INTO product_description (ID, description) VALUES(5, 'some description')
It will insert a new row with ID 5 if it does not exist yet, or will update the existing row with ID 5 if it already exists, which is probably exactly what you want.
If it is not, then approach number two is to use locking, like so:
query('LOCK TABLE users WRITE')
if (num_rows('SELECT * FROM users WHERE ...')) {
query('UPDATE users ...');
}
else {
query('INSERT INTO users ...');
}
query('UNLOCK TABLES')
I'm designing a chat application using AJAX, PHP, MySQL and am having a problem.
MySQL table is like this username[varchar11]-taken[enum-0,1](coloumns) generally a user who wants to talk to userX, firstly checks if taken value of userx is 0 or 1
SELECT * FROM usertable WHERE username=userX
If it is 0 the user updates taken as 1:
UPDATE usertable SET taken=1 WHERE username=userX
and starts to talk to userX.
But when there are two users who want to talk to userX and check the taken value at the same time unconsciously, they both get 0 response. As a result of it, both of their updates are taken as 1 afterwards and start to talk to userX at the same time. Effectively, 3 users will be talking each other. This chat site is supposed to allow a user to talk to maximum one user at the same time. I'm trying to design it like that.
I'd appreciate any suggestions. What I need is something which is going to stop other users from checking and updating taken value until one finishes to check and update taken value.
I am building an application using MySQL/cakePHP which involves the following requirements.
Admins create steps which users need to complete. e.g. yes/no type questions. Admins create these steps and new users should get them.
Users are required to complete all these steps when they logon.
My question is what would the best way to do this in the database (mySQL)
When a user signs up it queries the steps table and creates the new rows for each step for that user? It creates the rows from the server side code by looking in the steps table?
Create a new interim table to store to relationship??
I'm fairly experienced around relational design but a little stumped on the best way to do this and future proof myself at the same time.
**Mock Structure**
Steps
id
name
order
desc
**Users**
id
username
**Step_Users**
step_id
user_id
result1
result2
result3
Basically your tables are fine. Here is one scenario: Someone signs up. You take all the steps from table Steps and create a form with this fields. The user fills the form and submits them. Then you write those answers to a step_user table. And somehow you keep info that the user has finished the answers (probably another field somewhere or just check if there are rows for him in the step_user table). Of course that there are different approaches to handle this, based on the exact needs you have. Because you did not mentioned more details, I could mention more scenarios here but not sure if they will help.
If you like to be sure that each user has unique data for each step then from the table step_user you should make a composite unique index over the columns step_id and user_id http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_unique.asp, but of course you also need code to check this.
This is how I would design this too. Just, to cater for different amounts of steps (questions) later, perhaps save the Steps as one record per question, and do the same for the Step_users table:
**Step_Users**
step_id
user_id
result
If needed you can add a flag to the Users table which is set when the user completed all steps.
I would break it down this way:
You have, I assume, one row in the Steps table for each step in the process. You have one row in the Users table for each user in the system. Thus, your number of rows in the Step_Users table should be (rows in Steps) * (rows in Users).
I would recommend putting a boolean value into the Users table which is steps_finished. That way, you can know in an instant, just from pulling from the users table, whether or not they've been marked as finished. Also, future changes to the steps won't affect the user unless you want it to.
Follow this step when registering or logging in:
User registers a new account: steps_finished = false OR User logs in to an account.
If steps_finished = true, then ignore the rest of this. If false, continue.
System does a select * from Step_Users where user_id=X order by step_id
System does a select * from Steps order by id
Count through the rows in step 3 and compare them to the rows in step 2. When you find a row in step 3 that is not in the rows in step 2, give them that step. ( if you get through the entire table from step 3 and none are missing from the rows in step 2, then go set steps_finished = true )
NEXT PAGE SUBMISSION
Once they give a result for that step, select * from Step_Users where user_id=X and step_id=Y
If that result comes back as 0 rows returned, then you know they haven't submitted this step before. `insert into Step_Users (step_id, user_id, result1, result2, result3) values (X, Y, 'response1', 'response2', 'response3')
Do steps 3-5 above again.
There's many reasons to check the rows in the tables against each other' but the biggest is that the user might stop doing the steps in the middle, and you'll need a way to jump right back in where they started.