Need some simple help

My data base is like setup like so:

database - videogames
table - games
gameID | title | genre | platform | summary | rating | review

I have this code that displays the GameID | title| Genre | platform in table using this code.

<?php


/* This should show off all the tables with games included */

echo "<h2>Video games you have</h2>n"
. "<table cellspacing=15>n"
. "<tr><td colspan=5><hr></td></tr>n";

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
{
extract($row);

echo "<tr>n"
."<td>$gameID</td>n"
."<td>$title</td>n"
."<td>$genre</td>n"
."<td>$platform</td>n"
."<td><a href=?show=$gameID>review</a></td>n"
."</tr>n";

echo "<tr><td colspan=5><hr></td></tr>n";

}
echo "</table>n";

?>

Now what I want to be able to do is to make the review text or any link go to the reivew part of the database without showing the other info. I would like also maybe be able to change the other links to show things according to platform | genre etc.. But I want to start off being able t show off the review. I know this is similar to a weblog but in the books I have it's all date based and I want it ot be ID based.

u want something like this?

http://gmflp.l33t.ca/album.php

Yeah similar to that..

First of all you might be better off if you had a ssecond table called review with three fields id - gameid - review, but this is a different matter.

To do what you are trying to do all you need to do is put your main content in an if statement

I'm still not understanding it. Let me play with it to see. I'm sure I'm just a moron. Oh yea and I created another table like you suggested.

What I was trying to show you was how to display the review once a link has been clicked. The first time you go to the page $show is NULL and/or not set so the code will display your table full of games. Once you click a link the link would set $show and the main content would not be displayed only the review section. The if statement just determines what content to display. Either the main content or a specific review depending on whether or not show is set.

If you have a second table then you would bring back the review with a different query.

Hope this helps,
B

I got a better understanding. I'll try it out..

ok this is what I did. Using the old 1 table method i coded it like so:


Is this correct?

My understanding is this. If the Show value isn't set then it should set it so it makes the link. Then after you click it it should have the value set then go to the else portion in the new page displaying the review part of the table as request. I have the actual queris in a conifg file separate but I tried both ways and recieved the same result. Which was when you click the link it displays the tables and everything correctly (in the source code) just no text comes up. So pretty much a blank page. Any input?

You are calling the variable $show in the URL but looking for the variable $gameid in the SQL. Change the SQL to $sql2 = "SELECT review FROM games WHERE gameID = '$show'";

I had figured it out before. I do have another question? Why is it better, to have 2 tables as opposited to 1? What are the benefits?

i understand that, just want hear about people that have had full on experience with MySQL. Sometimes books can be not too practical