Building A Quick-And-Dirty Guestbook With patGuestbook (part 1) - Code Poet
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Now that the guestbook has been configured, all that's left is to integrate it into your Web site. And even that's a pretty simple task to accomplish - pop open the included sample PHP script, "example.php", which lives in your source distribution's root directory, and take a quick peek at what's inside it (I've added comments to the code so that it's easier to see what's happening):

<?php

	// include required classes
	require_once( "config/patGuestbook.php" 
);
	require_once( "include/patGuestbook.php" );
	require_once( "include/patTemplate.php" 
);
	require_once( "include/patDbc.php" );

	// initialize template engine
	$template	=	new 
patTemplate;

	// set base directory to look for templates
	$template->setBasedir( 
$skins_dir );
	
	// initialize DB abstraction layer
	$dbc		=	new	patMySqlDbc( 
$db_host, $db_name,
$db_user, $db_pass );

	// initialize guestbook
	$guestbook	=	new 
patGuestbook;
	
	// connect guestbook to template engine and DB connection
	$guestbook->setTemplate( 
$template );
	$guestbook->setDbc( $dbc );

	// set skin to use for guestbook
	if( 
!empty( $skin ) )
		$guestbook->setSkin( $skin );

	// display guestbook
	$guestbook->process( 
array( "name" => "Voice Of The People" ) ); ?>

Nothing too complicated here. First, the script include()-s the files that contain the API functions required by patGuestbook.

// include required classes
require_once( "config/patGuestbook.php" );
require_once( 
"include/patGuestbook.php" );
require_once( "include/patTemplate.php" );
require_once( 
"include/patDbc.php" );

This is followed by initialization and creation of the patGuestbook object, which serves as the focal point for all future guestbook operations, together with the template engine and database connection point.

// initialize template engine
$template	=	new patTemplate;

// initialize DB 
abstraction layer
$dbc		=	new	patMySqlDbc( $db_host, $db_name, $db_user,
$db_pass 
);

// initialize guestbook
$guestbook	=	new patGuestbook;
	
// connect guestbook 
to template engine and DB connection
$guestbook->setTemplate( $template ); $guestbook->setDbc( 
$dbc );

Once that's done, the patGuestbook object's process() method can be used to select and display the guestbook.

// display guestbook
$guestbook->process( array( "name" => "Voice Of The People" 
) );

You can use the bare-bones skeleton above to create your own PHP scripts, or even integrate the lines of code above into your existing site. Either way, this is all you need to do to get a guestbook up and running. Painless, isn't it?

>>> More PHP Articles          >>> More By Harish Kamath, (c) Melonfire