Question

I have been developing my own forum for about a week now and I am almost done with all of the code, however, I am stuck on one single issue that I have not been able to figure out.

Well, simply said I have sub forums that can be within any amount of other sub forums.

How would I create a path dynamically to any of those sub forums on the spot with PHP.

After the path is created I would use it within href’s and other things.

I am guessing I would somehow need to traverse the database based on a ID column and another column that would link one sub forum to another sub forum.

Let’s assume that my database table looks like this:

ID | Name        | Link |
---+-------------+-------
1  | Forum-One   | Top  |
2  | Forum-Two   | 1    |
3  | Forum-Three | 2    |
4  | Forum-Four  | 2    | 
5  | Forum-Five  | 3    |
6  | Forum-Six   | 3    |

How would I go about doing this – or is there something else that must be done instead?

I hope I was clear enough for everyone to understand.

EDIT:

 include("inc/config.php");

 function generateBreadcrumb($startingID){

  $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM temp_table WHERE ID='$startingID'");

  while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
  {
    $db_id=$row['ID'];
    $db_name=$row['Name'];
  }

     if($db_id!='Top'){
         return generateBreadCrumb($db_id);
     } else {
         return $db_name;
     }
 }

 $startID='6';
 echo generateBreadcrumb($startID);

Answer 1

First you need a terminating condition. So set your top level Forum[link] to null, or ‘top’, or something. Then its simply a matter of using a recursive function put your bread-crumb together.

So lets assume you wanted to go to display the breadcrumb to Forum-One:Forum-Three:Forum-Six , better known as Forum-Six.

Example code:

 <?php
 $yourForumId = 6; // replace this dynamically with your forum;
 $breadcrumb = generateBreadcrumb($yourForum);
 function generateBreadcrumb($startingForumId){
     $sql= "SELECT Name ,link FROM Forums WHERE ID = ".$startingForumId;
     //run your $sql however you do to get results
     //assuming you get associative arrays back
     if($res['link'] != 'top'){
         return generateBreadCrumb($res['link']).":".$res['Name'];
     } else {
         return $res['Name'];
     }
 }
 echo $breadcrumb;
 ?>

It’s recursion, which if you’re new to it may seem complicated, but I hope that helps!

EDIT: here’s your code with the needed edit…

include("inc/config.php");

 function generateBreadcrumb($startingID){

     $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM temp_table WHERE ID='$startingID'");

     $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
     $db_id=$row['link'];
     $db_name=$row['Name'];

     if($db_id!='Top'){
         return generateBreadCrumb($db_id).":".$db_name;
     } else {
         return $db_name;
     }
 }

 $startID='6';
 echo generateBreadcrumb($startID);