how to include a web address in a PHP string

06-01-2012, 06:27 AM

starmanMike starmanMike is offline

Centurion

Join Date: Oct 2005

Location: near Norwich, UK

Posts: 174

how to include a web address in a PHP string

HI,
First off, this has nothing to do with the PHP include() function!
OK... I have a mysql database (currently on my WAMP webserver) which contains members' website and email addresses, so the contents of the 'website' field could be a string like:
http://www.starman.co.uk (not underlined in DB, just straight text, but the link keeps getting put in, even if I do 'remove link'!)
there is also a search page where members can search for other members, and query this DB. This all works perfectly.
I would really like to be able to display a member's website address as a clickable link, but can't get my head round the way to format it. At the moment, the web and email addresses are being properly returned from the DB query, but only as plain text.
Sure, savvy users can copy and paste this into the browser's address bar, but it would be really neat if the addresses could be formatted as clickable links.
Anyone have any suggestions how to do that?
Code is:

Code:

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) 
			{
			echo "<b>Club: </b>" .$row['club']. "<br>";
			echo "<b>Venue: </b>". $row['venue']. "<br>";
			echo "<b>Description: </b>". $row['description'];
			echo "<br>";
			echo "<b>Contact: </b>" .ucwords($row['fname']);
			echo "<br>";
			echo "<b>Telephone: </b>" .$row['landline'];
			echo "<br>";
			echo "<b>Mobile: </b>" .$row['mobile'];
			echo "<br>";
			echo "<b>Email: </b>" .$row['email'];
			echo "<br>";
			echo "<b>Website: </b>".$row['website'];
			echo "<hr width=100%><br>";
			}

And, as I say, this all works. No problem with the 'actual' coding, just how to render those last two rows from the DB as clickable links!

06-01-2012, 08:59 AM

DrPunk

Senior Contributor

* Expert *

Join Date: Apr 2003

Location: Never where I want to be

Posts: 1,275

I don't know a great deal about this stuff, but I think you want to be echoing an <a> tag with the href attribute.

See -> http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_a_href.asp

My guess would be something like...

Code:

echo "<b>Website: </b> <a href=" .$row['website'] ">";

... but don't quote me on that syntax. I have no means of testing it either.

__________________
There are no computers in heaven!

06-01-2012, 10:13 AM

starmanMike starmanMike is offline

Centurion

Join Date: Oct 2005

Location: near Norwich, UK

Posts: 174

Thanks, drPunk!
Your solution definitely sent me in the right direction. I have just tried it out with success, so for the use of anyone else who may have the same problem, here's what works:

Code:

if ($row['website']=="")
			{
				echo "";
			}
			else
			{
			echo "<b>Website: </b><a href=".$row['website'].">Here</a>";	
			}

- We need an option to cater for those occasions where there is no web address in the DB, plus some link text, and the closing </a> tag as well.

07-09-2012, 11:37 AM

Ashtechsmith Ashtechsmith is offline

Newcomer

Join Date: May 2012

Location: Ahmedabad, Gujrat, India

Posts: 5

An Include Example

<html>
<body>
<a href="http://www.example.com/index.php">Home</a> -
<a href="http://www.example.com/about.php">About Us</a> -
<a href="http://www.example.com/links.php">Links</a> -
<a href="http://www.example.com/contact.php">Contact Us</a> <br />

<?php include("menu.php"); ?>
<p>This is my home page that uses a common menu to save me time when I add
new pages to my website!</p>
</body>
</html>