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Creating a Simple Phone Book in PHP

Creating a Simple Phone Book in PHP

This is a short follow-up of the post Storing and Retrieving Data from MySQL Database. Here we’ll expand the Phone Book Script that we’ve created to include the following three features:

  1. Use an efficient table structure to store data with proper INDEX (primary key) defined.

  2. Display previously stored phone numbers in different orders.

  3. Include a Search feature to let user easily find the person’s phone number he/she is seeking.

To create efficient table

Read the MySQL Data Types and Properties post to know more.

We’ll create a table having an ID field having serial numbers auto_incremented. We’ll set it to be the primary key. We can do this with the help of the following SQL query:

CREATE TABLE phno(
id int AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
name varchar( 50 ) ,
phnum varchar( 20 )
)

Retrieving data in other orders

For our table we’d easily be able to retrieve data in the following four orders:

  1. Newest stored first.
  2. Oldest stored first
  3. A-Z Order
  4. Z-A Order

These display orders will certainly help the user.

I’m stating the SQL queries required to achieve the above four orders:

1. Newest stored first

SELECT *
FROM phno
ORDER BY id DESC

Larger the ID (serial numbered), newer the rows is. Thus sorting the rows in desc(ending) ‘order (by)’ will do the trick.

2. Oldest stored first

SELECT *
FROM phno
ORDER BY id ASC

Opposite of above.

3. A-Z Order

SELECT *
FROM phno
ORDER BY name ASC

‘order by’ can work with character data too.

4. Z-A Order

SELECT *
FROM phno
ORDER BY name DESC

Again the same but in reverse order.

Including search feature

Searching in MySQL fields is very easy with the following query:

SELECT *
FROM phno
WHERE name LIKE 'jo%'

For this we’d require the user to enter first few characters of the name he/she would like to search for, which will be matched against the name field.

E.g. If have the following names in our table:

freind1   83465489039
friend2   754784569
hello     73264589846
jack      84775666

a search for ‘fr’ using the following query:

SELECT *
FROM phno
WHERE name LIKE 'fr%'

Would return

freind1   83465489039
friend2   754784569

Since the first two characters of the search string match with the name field of the above two rows, the result would then be formatted and shown to the user.

Here is the complete code:

<?php
//----My Phone Book---- 
//Copyright 2008 http://learning-computer-programming.blogspot.com/ 
//This code is free to use and republish but credit 
//and copyright information must remain intact. 
//------------------------------- 

//connect to MySQL
//provide your 'USERNAME' and 'PASSWORD'
//change 'localhost' to the MySQL server
//host, if not using on 'local server'
$db=new mysqli('localhost','USERNAME','PASSWORD');
//if 'save' button was pressed
//uesr wants to store phone number
if(isset($_POST['save']))
{
    
$name=trim($_POST['name']);
    
$phno=trim($_POST['phno']);
    
    
//if data supplied are not empty
    
if(!$name=='' || !$phno=='')
    {
        
//if this is the first time
        //and database is not craeted
        
if(!$db->select_db('one'))
            
//create the database
            
$db->query('create database one');
        
        
//select the databasw to work with
        
$db->select_db('one');
            
        
//if table is not craeted, craete it
        
if(!$db->query('select * from phno'))
            
$db->query('create table phno(id int auto_increment primary key, name varchar(50), phnum varchar(20))');
        
        
//ready to insert data
        
$db->query("insert into phno (name, phnum) values ('$name', '$phno')");
    }
}
//show the form
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>My Phone Book</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>My Phone Book</h1>
<h2 style="background: #000; color: #fff;">Store New Phone Number</h2>
<form name="form2" method="get" action="">
  <p style="background: #000; color: #fff;"><b>Search:</b>
    <input name="search" type="text" id="search">
    <input name="searchb" type="submit" id="searchb" value="Search">
  </p>
</form>
<p></p>
<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" action="">
  <table width="250" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
    <tr> 
      <td width="83">Name</td>
      <td width="417"><input name="name" type="text" id="name" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr> 
      <td>Ph. No.</td>
      <td><input name="phno" type="text" id="phno" value=""></td>
    </tr>
    <tr> 
      <td><input name="save" type="submit" id="save" value="Save" /></td>
      <td><input type="reset" name="Submit2" value="Reset" /></td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</form>
<h2 style="background: #000; color: #fff;">Previously Stored</h2>
<p>ORDER BY: <a href="?order=new">newest first </a>| <a href="?order=old">oldest 
  first</a> | <a href="?order=az">a-z</a> | <a href="?order=za">z-a</a></p>
</body>
</html>
<?php
//----DISPALY PREVIOUSLY STORED PH. NUMBERS----

//create the SQL query as per the action
//if any ordering is selected
$order=$_GET['order'];
if(
$order=='new')
    
$query="select * from phno order by id desc";
elseif(
$order=='old')
    
$query="select * from phno order by id asc";
elseif(
$order=='az')
    
$query="select * from phno order by name asc";
elseif(
$order=='za')
    
$query="select * from phno order by name desc";
//or if user is searching
elseif(isset($_GET['searchb']))
    {
        
$search=$_GET['search'];
        
$query="select * from phno where name like '$search%'";
    }
else
    
//use the default query
    
$query="select * from phno";
    
//if database does not exits
//first time operation
if(!$db->select_db('one'))
{
    echo 
"<p><i>NONE</i></p>";
    exit;
}
//else
//do the query
$result=$db->query($query);
//find number of rows
$num_rows=$result->num_rows;
//if no rows present probably when
//searching
if($num_rows<=0)
    echo 
"<p><i>No Match Found!</i></p>";
//process all the rows one-by-one
for($i=0;$i<$num_rows;$i++)
{
    
//fetch one row
    
$row=$result->fetch_row();
    
//print the values
    
echo "<p><span style=\"font-size: 200%;\">$row[1]: </span> $row[2]</p>";
}
//close MySQL connection
$db->close();
?>

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