Make query result into hyperlink.

Hello,

I am sorry if this is a really simple stupid question but I spent hours
yesterday trawling the net trying to find an answer to no avail.
I have the following page that queries a mysql database and displays the
query in a table.

<?php
$link = mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "pass");
mysql_select_db("music");
$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM artist");
while (list($id, $artist, $num_plays, $last_play, $date_added, $filename) =
mysql_fetch_row($query)) {
echo
"<TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$last_play</TD><T
D>$date_added</TD></p></TR>";
}
?>

I have the query collect the $filename variable which is the path to the mp3
file, what I would kike to do is turn each column returned by the query into
a hyperlink that would play the song.
I started to try something like this

echo "<A
HREF="$filename"><TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$
last_play</TD><TD>$date_added</TD></p></TR></A>";

but the "" in the HREF statement conflict. I was playing around with the
exec
function but could not get it to work.
Could someone please point me in the right direction.
Also if any one could recommend a book or any resources for someone who
knows very little about programming and would like to know more about PHP
and Perl database integration I would be eternally grateful.

Thanks
Richard.

On 2004-02-02, Richard <rsadler@iiu.ie> wrote:
> echo "<A
> HREF="$filename"><TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$
> last_play</TD><TD>$date_added</TD></p></TR></A>";

fe: echo "<a href='$filename'>...........";

http://www.php.net/manual -> variables -> strings

--
http://home.mysth.be/~timvw

Richard wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am sorry if this is a really simple stupid question but I spent hours
> yesterday trawling the net trying to find an answer to no avail.
> I have the following page that queries a mysql database and displays the
> query in a table.
>
> <?php
> $link = mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "pass");
> mysql_select_db("music");
> $query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM artist");
> while (list($id, $artist, $num_plays, $last_play, $date_added, $filename) =
> mysql_fetch_row($query)) {
> echo
> "<TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$last_play</TD><T
> D>$date_added</TD></p></TR>";
> }
> ?>
>
> I have the query collect the $filename variable which is the path to the mp3
> file, what I would kike to do is turn each column returned by the query into
> a hyperlink that would play the song.
> I started to try something like this
>
> echo "<A
> HREF="$filename"><TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$
> last_play</TD><TD>$date_added</TD></p></TR></A>";
>
> but the "" in the HREF statement conflict. I was playing around with the
> exec
> function but could not get it to work.
> Could someone please point me in the right direction.
> Also if any one could recommend a book or any resources for someone who
> knows very little about programming and would like to know more about PHP
> and Perl database integration I would be eternally grateful.
>
> Thanks
> Richard.
>
You need to either escape your quote marks within your string:
echo "<A
HREF=\"$filename\"><TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$
last_play</TD><TD>$date_added</TD></p></TR></A>";

Or use single quote marks, like this:

echo "<A
HREF='$filename'><TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$
last_play</TD><TD>$date_added</TD></p></TR></A>";

Or this:

echo '<A
HREF="$filename"><TR><TD><p>$id</TD><TD>$artist</TD><TD>$num_plays</TD><TD>$
last_play</TD><TD>$date_added</TD></p></TR></A>';

If you use the "..." quote convention, you can also escape Backslash
(\\) Newline (\n) CariageReturn (\r) Tab (\t) and Hex chars (\xoo - \xFF).

Note, if your string uses single '...' quote marks the escape behaviour
will not work except for single quote itself (eg print 'batman\'s lair'
and your inline variables (ie $artist) will appear as '$artist', not as
the value it refers to.

Here endeth the lesson.