Echoing forum Id to new page to display content? - php

Question

can someone please help me i am having problems creating my forum.
At the moment users can create posts, the post title is listed down the page and then the user is suppose to be able to click the title link and be taken to read_post.php and then this should take the user to another page where the post content can be viewed, i am trying to do this by echoing the forum post id but it doesnt seem to want to work, instead i get this error:
Database query failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 3
can someonee please show me where im going wrong.
here is my sql function:
function read_forum() {
global $connection;
global $forum_id;
$query = "SELECT *
FROM ptb_forum, ptb_profiles
WHERE ptb_forum.id = $forum_id ";
$forum_set = mysql_query($query, $connection);
confirm_query($forum_set);
return $forum_set;
}
here is the link code that takes the user to read_post.php which suppose to echo the forum id and display the content for each individual post.
<?
$forum_set = get_forum();
while ($forum = mysql_fetch_array($forum_set)) {
?>
<div class="forumcase" id="forumcase">
<div class="pend-forum-content">
<?php echo "<strong>{$forum['title']}</strong> - Posted by {$user['first_name']}"; ?>
</div>
here's my code for read_post.php:
<?php
$page_title = "Read Post";
include('includes/header.php');
include ('includes/mod_login/login_form2.php'); ?>
<?php
confirm_logged_in();
if (isset ($_GET['frm'])) {
$forum_id = $_GET['frm'];
}
?>
<?php include('includes/copyrightbar.php'); ?>
<div class="modtitle">
<div class="modtitle-text">Messages Between <?php echo "{$forum['display_name']}"; ?> & You</div>
</div>
<div class="modcontent57">
<br /><br /><br/><br/>
<div class="forum">
<div class="forum-pic"><?php echo "<img src=\"data/photos/{$_SESSION['user_id']}/_default.jpg\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" class=\"img-with-border-forum\" />";?>
</div>
<div class="message-links">
<strong><< Back to Forum
</div>
<br /><br /><br/><br/>
<?php
$datesent1 = $inbox['date_sent']; ?>
<?php
$forum_set = read_forum();
while ($forum = mysql_fetch_array($forum_set)) {
$prof_photo = "data/photos/{$message['user_id']}/_default.jpg";
$result = mysql_query("UPDATE ptb_forum SET ptb_forum.read_forum='1' WHERE ptb_forum.id='$forum_id'")
or die(mysql_error());
?>
<div class="message-date">
<?php echo "".date('D M jS, Y - g:ia', strtotime($message['date_sent'])).""; ?></div>
<div class="img-with-border-msg-read"><?php echo "<img width=\"60px\" height=\"60px\" src=\"{$prof_photo}\"><br />"; ?></div>
<div class="conversation-text">
<?php echo "<i>Conversations between you and </i>{$forum['display_name']}.<br /> "; ?></div>
<div class="message-content">
<?php echo "<strong>Message Subject: </strong><i>{$forum['subject']}</i>"; ?>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<?php echo "<strong>Message:<br/></strong></br ><i>{$forum['content']}</i>"; ?>
</div>
<div class="reply-box">
<? include ('message_reply.php'); ?>
</div>
<?php
}
?>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</div>
</div>
<?php include('includes/footer.php'); ?>
</div>

Answer 1

You have an error in your query... Your parameter is not quoted...
$query = "SELECT *
FROM ptb_forum, ptb_profiles
WHERE ptb_forum.id = '$forum_id'";
However... I suggest that you refrain from using the mysql_ family of functions. They are deprecated and due to be removed from PHP in a future release. You should be using parameterized queries using MySQLi or PDO.
Also, global is evil. I've never had a need to use it in 10 years of PHP programming. Neither should you.