PHP - I Want To Re-design The Way My Games Website Fetches Game Info

I make my share of programming design blunders, as many of you know from helping me debug a few, so I am hesitant to point fingers, but I just had an experience so horrible, with so many errors on a website owned by Snapfish (which should have some programming resources) that I had to write it up.    

Hello, I am building an online game(users make a character and move on a map and so on...)   All user data is stored in a mySQL database and I want the users to interact in real-time, but there can be a 1-3 second delay between the communication, but not exceed 3 seconds even if 500 players are playing at the same time.   But for the purpose of the question let's say the users can only chat between one another, if I'll have a solution for that then I can use the same method for more parts of the game.   I can't use websockets because my webhost doesn't support it( I don't want to use pusher.com).   I know I can make real-time apps with ajax long polling, but I think that with 500 players playing at the same time it's not the best solution.   So, finally: How can I make user interaction as close as possible to a real-time game? (Without too much load on the hosting server)   (I am sorry if some of my terms are not correct - I am just getting back to coding after a long time...)
Edited by Mythion, 17 August 2014 - 02:34 AM.

Hey guys. I am building a games website, and I am using ID (example: games.php?id_) to view games with their Title, SWF file to play, and their Image Icon. I am basically fetching information per game using ID that is typed in the URL after my website address containing the '?id_' or '?id='. Can somebody tell me whats wrong with the code I have bellow, because it's not working. I always get parse error (T_STRING) at line 9.


This code is inside my games.php page. It doesn't seem to work.

================================

<?php
$conn = mysql_connect("host", "username", "password");
mysql_select_db("games");
$game_id = $_GET['id'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM games WHERE id='$game_id' LIMIT 1";
$result = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or die(mysql_error());
$number_of_results = mysql_num_rows($result);

    while ($result_array = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {

        $id = $result_array['fldID'];
        $title = $result_array['fldTitle'];
        $graphic = $result_array['fldIconSmall'];           // Example: game1234.png
        $swf = $result_array['fldSwfSrc'];                      // Example: game1234.swf
        $graphic_file_location = 'http://www.blabla.com/games/images/' . $graphic;
        $swf_file_location = 'http://www.blabla.com/games/' .$swf;

        echo '<a href="http://www.blabla.com/games.php?id=' . $id . '"></a>';
        echo '<h1>' . $title . '</h1>';
        echo '<img src="' . $graphic_file_location . '" width="50" height="50" border="0" />';
        echo '<object width="550" height="400">';
        echo '<param name="movie" value="' . $swf_file_location . '">';
        echo '<embed src="' . $swf_file_location . '" width="550" height="400">';
        echo '</embed>';
        echo '</object>';
       
}
?>

================================

Any help would be appreciated since so far this script has not executed at all. I keep getting an error when executing this entire script. I can't find any errors in it either..but it just doesn't work.

Is there anyway to have users play flash games on my forum and if they win/etc, send them Forum Gold? Wouldn't it be easy to hack it though by just changing the data being sent from the flash app with tamper data? I want to put a poker flash game on my site, and if users play poker/etc and if they win, I want to run a mysql query to update there account with more "Forum gold" If you will, and I want the poker flash game to have correspond and work with the amount of Forum Gold that they have?   Would this have to be custom coded by me If I learn actionscript? OR is there anything out like this that I can use?

Hi all am haiving abit of a problem am trying to query 6 categories with 6 games each.With the code i done is only showing one cat with 6 games. How can i fix this ?. If you go to games-flash.co.uk you will see at the bottom of the home page that only one cat shows.   php code.

     <div class="catgames">

Basically I am setting up my own cricket management game, but there are 3 areas that I am slightly stuck on and would appreciate help:

1) When a use registers, I need to create 11 players for their team. For this, I am going to have one text files with first names and one text file with surnames. How can I open each file and select a name and then match them together?

2) I need to create the list of games to be executed at particular times through a cron job. How can I go through all the teams in a table and match them together in games, ensuring everyone plays everyone? If a new player registers, he will be put into a random league and so the games for that league will have to be redone

3) How can I set up a cron job to execute the above games? Each team should play once a day and so if there are 24 teams in a table, there will be 12 games that occur through this cron job. I assume cron jobs are the best thing for this.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Hi Guys.

 

Doing an assignment for uni, and stuck on an error. Ill attach some files to show the problem and any help very much appreciated.

 

Error and the screen it comes on

 

Code

<?php
    function dispcategories() {
        include ('dbconn.php');

        $select = mysqli_query($con, "SELECT * FROM categories");

        while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($select)) {
            echo "<table class='category table'>";
            echo "<tr><td class='main-category' colspan='2'>".$row['category_title']."</td></tr>";
            dispsubcategories($row['cat_id']);
            echo "</table>";
        }

    }

    function dispsubcategories($parent_id) {
        include ('dbconn.php');
        $select = mysqli_query($con, "SELECT cat_id, subcat_id, subcategory_title, subcategory_desc FROM categories, subcategories WHERE ($parent_id = categories.cat_id) AND ($parent_id = subcategories.parent_id");
            echo "<tr><th width='90%'>Categories</th><th width='10%'>Topics</th></tr>";
            while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($select)) {
                echo "<tr><td class='category_title'><a href='/Games Forum/topics.php?cid=".$row['cat_id']."scid=".$row['subcat_id']."'>".$row['subcategory_title']."<br />";
                echo $row['subcategory_desc']."</a><td>";
                echo "<td class='num-topics'>".getnumtopics($parent_id, $row['subcat_id'])."</td></tr>";

            }
    }

    function getnumtopics($cat_id, $subcat_id) {
        include ('dbconn.php');
        $select = mysqli_query($con, "SELECT category_id, subcategory_id FROM topics WHERE ".$cat_id." = category_id AND ".$subcat_id." = subcategory_id");
        return mysqli_num_rows($select);
    }
?>

 

 

and the structure of the database

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Ben555

I have a tic tac toe game that I've been working on for a school project. When I attempt to run it a parse error comes up saying "syntax error, unexpected $end" on line 311. If anyone wants to try and run it. go here http://itstudents.ccs.uconn.edu/~iskm218st38/newnewnewtictactoe.html I'm trying to make the computer randomly select a tile after the human player selects but the first issue I need help with is why i'm getting this syntax error on a line that doesnt have code on.

This is the html gameboard
Code: [Select]
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>Untitled</title>
<meta name="generator" content="BBEdit 16.0" />
</head>
<body>
<center>
<?php
session_start()
?>
<form action="tictactoe.php" method="post">
<table>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" align="center">
<input type="text" size="9" name="message" style="border:none; text-align:center;" /></td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<tr>
<td>
<input type="text" size="1" name="box1" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="center">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box2" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box3" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box4" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<input type="text" size="1" name="box5" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="center">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box6" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box7" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box8" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<input type="text" size="1" name="box9" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="center">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box10" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box11" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box12" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<input type="text" size="1" name="box13" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="center">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box14" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box15" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>
<td align="right">
<input type="text" size="1" name="box16" pattern="[X|O{2}]" title="X or O" /></td>

</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3"><input type="button" value="new game"
                       onclick="new_game();
                                play();" /></td>
<td colspan="3"><input type="button" value="submit"
                       onclick="submit();" /></td>
</tr>
</center>
</body>
</html>

 

And this is the tictactoe.php file.

Code: [Select]
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>Untitled</title>
<meta name="generator" content="BBEdit 16.0" />
</head>
<body>
<center>
<?php

//refer to the comment below

$box1 = '';
$box2 = '';
$box3 = '';
$box4 = '';
$box5 = '';
$box6 = '';
$box7 = '';
$box8 = '';
$box9 = '';
$box10 = '';
$box11 = '';
$box12 = '';
$box13 = '';
$box14 = '';
$box15 = '';
$box16 = '';

$human = '';
$computer = '';

$players = array ($human, $computer);

$gameboard = array(
$box1,
$box2,
$box3,
$box4,
$box5,
$box6,
$box7,
$box8,
$box9,
$box10,
$box11,
$box12,
$box13,
$box14,
$box15,
$box16,
);

switch ($box1) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box1"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box1"];
        break;
}

switch ($box2) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box2"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box2"];
        break;
}
switch ($box3) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box3"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box3"];
        break;
}
switch ($box4) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box4"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box4"];
        break;
}
switch ($box5) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box5"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box5"];
        break;
}
switch ($box6) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box6"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box6"];
        break;
}
switch ($box7) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box7"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box7"];
        break;
}
switch ($box8) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box8"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box8"];
        break;
}
switch ($box9) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box9"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box9"];
        break;
}
switch ($box10) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box10"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box10"];
        break;
}
switch ($box11) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box11"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box11"];
        break;
}
switch ($box12) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box12"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box12"];
        break;
}
switch ($box13) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box13"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box13"];
        break;
}
switch ($box14) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box14"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box14"];
        break;
}
switch ($box15) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box15"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box15"];
        break;
}

switch ($box16) {
    case "O":
        echo $_POST["box16"];
        break;
    case "X":
        echo $_POST["box16"];
        break;
}
 
/*$gameboard = array_rand($box1, $box2, $box3, $box4, $box5, $box6, $box7, $box8, $box9, $box10, $box11, $box12, $box13, $box14, $box15, $box16 );
foreach ($gameboard as &$value) {
    $value = 'O';
}*/
// $gameboard is now array_rand() as &$value = O 
unset($value); // break the reference with the last element
 
 if ($box1=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box2=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box3=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box4=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box5=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box6=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box7=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box8=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box9=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box10=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box11=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box12=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box13=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box14=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box15=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 if ($box16=="X")
 echo $gameboard[$rand_keys[0]] . "\n";
 
 
 
/*
unset($b);
$b[] = "box1|box2|box3|box4";
$b[] = "box5|box6|box7|box8";
$b[] = "box9|box10|box11|box12";
$b[] = "box13|box14|box15|box16";
*/
/*
   $boardtile = ();
   $gameboard = array( array(box1, box2, box3),
        array(box4, box5, box6),
            array(box7, box8, box9));
    public static GUI_Box
*/
    $Human = true;
  function check_input( $box1 ) {
  if( preg_match( "X|O", $text ) ) {
    return false;
  }
  else {
    return true;

    // human wins if 
    if( //horizontal
($box1 == $human && $box2 == $human && $box3 == $human && $box4 == $human) or
($box5 == $human && $box6 == $human && $box7 == $human && $box8 == $human) or
($box9 == $human && $box10 == $human && $box11 == $human && $box12 == $human) or
($box9 == $human && $box10 == $human && $box11 == $human && $box12 == $human) or

//vertical

($box1 == $human && $box5 == $human && $box9 == $human && $box13 == $human) or
($box2 == $human && $box6 == $human && $box10 == $human && $box14 == $human) or
($box3 == $human && $box7 == $human && $box11 == $human && $box15 == $human) or
($box4 == $human && $box8 == $human && $box12 == $human && $box16 == $human) or
//diagonal

($box4 == $human && $box7 == $human && $box10 == $human && $box13 == $human) or
($box1 == $human && $box6 == $human && $box11 == $human && $box16 == $human))

echo("human "+$players[0]+" won")
;
//computer wins if 
if( //horizontal
($box1 == $computer && $box2 == $computer && $box3 == $computer && $box4 == $computer) or
($box5 == $computer && $box6 == $computer && $box7 == $computer && $box8 == $computer) or
($box9 == $computer && $box10 == $computer && $box11 == $computer && $box12 == $computer) or
($box9 == $computer && $box10 == $computer && $box11 == $computer && $box12 == $computer) or 

//vertical

($box1 == $computer && $box5 == $computer && $box9 == $computer && $box13 == $computer) or
($box2 == $computer && $box6 == $computer && $box10 == $computer && $box14 == $computer) or
($box3 == $computer && $box7 == $computer && $box11 == $computer && $box15 == $computer) or
($box4 == $computer && $box8 == $computer && $box12 == $computer && $box16 == $computer) or
//diagonal

($box4 == $computer && $box7 == $computer && $box10 == $computer && $box13 == $computer) or
($box1 == $computer && $box6 == $computer && $box11 == $computer && $box16 == $computer))

echo("computer "+$players[1]+" won")
;
}
?>
</center>
</body>
</html>

Can someone point me to a layman's tutorial for a simple hangman game?

I downloaded one off the internet, but it doesn't do what I want. The one I use doesn't allow capitalized letters or spaces! I can live without the capitlization but MOST of the words will have spaces and therefore, this code will not work.

I want to start a brand new code from scratch but I can't seem to figure it out. I am new to coding and have been coding my site using MySQL, and that's fine, but ALL of the coding for hangman is very confusing for me!


  Code: [Select]
$letters = array('a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j','k','l','m', 'n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z', ' ');

if(empty($_POST))
{

$rightcount = '0';
$wrongcount = '0';
$words = explode("\n", file_get_contents('words.list.txt'));
   
$right = array_fill_keys($letters, ' _ ');
   
$wrong = array();

shuffle($words);
   
$word = strtolower($words[0]);

$rightstr = serialize($right);
   
$wrongstr = serialize($wrong);
   
$wordletters = str_split($word);
   
$show = '';
   
foreach($wordletters as $letter)
{
       
$show .= $right[$letter];
   
}

}
else
{

$show = $_POST['show'];
$word = $_POST['word'];

$lettercount = strlen($word);
echo $lettercount . "<br>";
$word = htmlspecialchars($word);
$word = mysql_real_escape_string($word);
$rightcount = $_POST['rightcount'];
   
$wrongcount = $_POST['wrongcount'];

$guess = strtolower($_POST['guess']);

$guess = ctype_alpha($guess);
if($guess == TRUE)
{
$guess = strtolower($_POST['guess']);
}
else
{
echo "<b>Please use only letters.</b><br>";
$guess = '';
}

$letterinstance = @substr_count($word, $guess);

$right = unserialize($_POST['rightstr']);

$wrong = unserialize($_POST['wrongstr']);
   
$wordletters = str_split($word);


if(!(empty($guess)))
{
if(stristr($word, $guess))
{
       
$show = '';
       
$right[$guess] = $guess;

$wordletters = str_split($word);

$rightcount = $rightcount + (1*$letterinstance);
foreach($wordletters as $letter)
{
           
$show .= $right[$letter];
}

}
else
{
       
$show = '';
       
$wrong[$guess] = $guess;

$wrongcount = $wrongcount + 1;
if(count($wrong) == 6)
{
           
  $show = $word;

echo "You lost this round of hangman.<br>";
}
else
{
           
  foreach($wordletters as $letter)
{
               
$show .= $right[$letter];
}
       
}
}

}
   
$rightstr = serialize($right);
   
$wrongstr = serialize($wrong);

echo "Right: $rightcount<br>Wrong: $wrongcount<br>";

if($rightcount == $lettercount)
{
echo "You win!<br>";
}


}
echo "Incorrect Guesses: ";
echo implode(', ', $wrong);
echo "<br>";
echo $show;
echo "<br />";
echo "<form method='post'>
<input name='guess'>";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='show' value='$show'>
";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='rightcount' value='$rightcount'>
";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='wrongcount' value='$wrongcount'>
";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='word' value='$word'>
";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='rightstr' value='$rightstr'>";
echo "<input type='hidden' name='wrongstr' value='$wrongstr'>";
echo "<input type='submit' value='guess'>
";
echo "</form>";
echo "<a href='hangman.php'>Reset</a>";


That is the code I am using now. The connect to the database and rewarding the user when they guess all the letters work fine, but I need for my other details to be in there and I have NO clue how to do that. I've tried a lot of things but everything just screws up.

Here's the code I have now that is from scratch, and it's very basic. I really have no freakin' clue where to go from there.

Code: [Select]
<?php

$words = explode(";", file_get_contents('words.list.txt'));

shuffle($words);
    
$word = $words[0];



$upletters = array('a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j','k','l','m', 'n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z');

$lowletters = array('A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M', 'N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z');

echo $word . "<br>";

$word1 = str_replace($upletters, ' _ ', $word);
$word1 = str_replace($lowletters, ' _ ', $word1);

echo $word1 . "<br><br>";


echo "<form action = '1.php' method = 'POST'>";
echo "<input type = 'text' name = 'guess' size = '10'>";
echo "<input type = 'hidden' name = 'word' value = '$word'>";
echo "<input type = 'hidden' name = 'word1' value = '$word1'>";
echo "<br><input type = 'submit' value = 'Guess!'></form>";
?>

Can someone PLEASE point me in the right direction! Or give me all the functions I need to use to get through this!

Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone and thanks for reading my request for help   I am working on a basic game where 3 - 5 images will be displayed on each page for the user to see (there should be about 5 pages), each of these images will have a value e.g. -1, +1, 0, -10, +12. When the user clicks on an image his/her score will change and the next page with 3 - 5 new images will be shown. When all of the pages have been shown and the user has a score of lets just say 20 or more then more pages will be displayed, if not then a new page will display stating that the game is over.     My question is how do I give each image a value and how do I show a new set of images based on the overall "score" of the player after the first set of pages have been shown? And is there a way to display the players score on the page?   Thanks and any answers will be appreciated. If you know of any videos which may help please tell me :-\

Haven't done much in PHP for a while, and as a refresher and a bit of a challenge to myself I have decided to write up a simple game of sorts.

Basically in the game I have townships, every play has their own town. And I want these towns to have events every 3-10 hours, and have these events have results such as births/deaths/fires/flooding/etc.

At the moment I'm looking at this kind of setup:
A database table with the city information.. city_id, city_owner_id, city_name, etc. I figure I can make another field such as city_nextevent and fill it with a timestamp plus a random number of seconds. then when the user views their city if city_nextevent is older than current time then run the event function and set the next event time.

In my head this idea seems to work well, until I realised that if the user doesn't log on for 20+ hours the events will not stack, they will only get the one event when they next view their town when several events should have passed. I realise I could use a cronjob to check all events across all towns, but is there a better way of doing it.

I had also though about adding several fields to the database containing say the next five event times, then updating each field after time had passed. Which gives more events if the user has been offline for 20+ hours. So if the play was offline for say a week, their town would pretty much dry up until they returned.

Basically, I want their town to run while they're offline. But was trying to avoid using a cronjob.

Anyone have any thoughts on how this could be done?

Wow, I have no clue what I'm doing.. I'm trying to make a random game and if you roll a 6, you will win 500 rp and I'm trying to insert the 500 rp into the user who is logged in ($_SESSION['username'). But I... just don't know where to begin.

Here is my crappy coding that I just.. am stumped on:

<p><?php
$dice = rand(1,6);
if($dice == 1){
echo "You rolled a 
<br><b>1</b>";
}if($dice == 2){
echo "You rolled a
<br><b>2</b>";
}if($dice == 3){
echo "You rolled a
<br><b>3</b>";
}if($dice == 4){
echo "You rolled a
<br><b>4</b>";
}if($dice == 5){
echo "You rolled a
<br><b>5</b>";
}if($dice == 6){
echo "You rolled a
<br><b>6</b>";
}

$winner = "500";
if($dice == 6);
{
include("haha.php");
$cxn = mysqli_connect($dbhost,$dbuser,$dbpassword,$dbdatabase);
$sql = "INSERT INTO Member (rp) VALUES ('$winner')";
mysqli_query($cxn,$sql);
}
?>

Hello Everyone,

I am using some code for a hangman game.  It is written in PHP.  I am using code directly from this website http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet267046.html and am having issues with it.  I have the php file on my web server, and I also have a words.txt file on the server as well.  However, I am getting errors, and the game also automatically says "you win!" even when entering just one letter.  I'm not sure what is going on, as I am using the exact code from the website.

Here is where the file is located: http://www.littlehousegardening.com/hangman/hangmanfinal.php

Errors I am encountering:


Warning: Unknown: Your script possibly relies on a session side-effect which existed until PHP 4.2.3. Please be advised that the session extension does not consider global variables as a source of data, unless register_globals is enabled. You can disable this functionality and this warning by setting session.bug_compat_42 or session.bug_compat_warn to off, respectively in Unknown on line 0

code:
Code: [Select]
<?php
session_start();

// The following function returns a word of dots, each dot represents a letter

function word2dots($word) {
$wordlength = strlen($word);
$dotWord = "";
for ($i = 0; $i < $wordlength; $i++) {
$dotWord = "".$dotWord.".";
}
return $dotWord;
}

// The following function opens the file, reads it, saves it into an array and returns a random word

function getWord() {

// Opening and reading file

$filename = "words.txt"; // You can change this into whatever words file you'd like, as long as it's local.

$filehandle = fopen($filename,"r");
$filecontent = fread($filehandle,filesize($filename));
fclose($filehandle);

if (!$filehandle) {
$_SESSION['message'] = "Could not open ".$filename;
}

// Splitting the content into the $words array

$words = split("\|", $filecontent);
$words_amount = count($words);

// Calculating random number

$random_number = mt_rand(0,$words_amount);

// Returning random word
$theWord2 = $words[$random_number];

return $theWord2;
}

// Resetting the message

$_SESSION['message'] = "";

// Retrieving the guessWord, theWord and the amount of errors.

if (isset($_POST['send_letter']) && $_SESSION['gameEnded'] != true) {
if (isset($_POST['HangManLetter']) && preg_match("/[A-Z\s_]/i", $_POST['HangManLetter']) > 0) {

// Getting the $letter value

$letter = htmlentities(stripslashes($_POST['HangManLetter']));

// Retrieving session variables

$theWord = $_SESSION['theWord'];
$guessWord = $_SESSION['guessWord'];
$error_amount = $_SESSION['error_amount'];

// Checking wether the $letter occurs in the word

// Filling the arrays:

for ($d = 0; $d < strlen($theWord); $d++) {
$theWordArray[$d] = substr($theWord, $d, 1);
$guessWordArray[$d] = substr($guessWord, $d, 1);
}

// Checking occurance of the letter in theWord

$letterOccured = false;
for ($f = 0; $f < strlen($theWord); $f++) {
if ($theWordArray[$f] == $letter) {
$letterOccured = true;
$guessWordArray[$f] = $theWordArray[$f];
}
}

// Updating the guessWord:

$guessWord = "";
for ($r = 0; $r < strlen($theWord); $r++) {
$guessWord = "".$guessWord."".$guessWordArray[$r]."";
}

$_SESSION['guessWord'] = $guessWord;

if ($_SESSION['guessWord'] == $_SESSION['theWord']) {
$_SESSION['message'] = "You won! <input type='submit' name='reset' value='Try again?' />";
unset($_SESSION['theWord']);
unset($_SESSION['guessWord']);
$_SESSION['gameEnded'] = true;
$_SESSION['guessWord'] = $theWord;
}

if ($letterOccured == false) {
$error_amount++;
$_SESSION['error_amount'] = $error_amount;

// If the error_amount is higher as 9, the player lost

if ($error_amount > 9) {
$_SESSION['message'] = "You lost! <input type='submit' name='reset' value='Try again?' />";
unset($_SESSION['theWord']);
unset($_SESSION['guessWord']);
$_SESSION['gameEnded'] = true;
$_SESSION['guessWord'] = $theWord;
}
}

} else {

// Showing the message

if (preg_match("/[A-Z\s_]/i", $_POST['letter']) < 0) {

$_SESSION['message'] = "Only alphanumeric symbols are allowed!";

} else {

$_SESSION['message'] = "Enter a letter!";

} // End of else isaplha ($_POST['HangManLetter'])
} // End of else isset($_POST['HangManLetter']) and preg_match("/[A-Z\s_]/i", $_POST['HangManLetter'])

} else { // If the game has been resetted or there has not yet been a game played

$theWord = getWord();
$guessWord = word2dots($theWord);
$error_amount = 0;
$_SESSION['theWord'] = $theWord;
$_SESSION['guessWord'] = $guessWord;
$_SESSION['error_amount'] = $error_amount;
$_SESSION['gameEnded'] = false;
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style1.css" type="text/css" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Hangman</title>
</head>
<body onload="document.getElementById('HangManInput').focus()">
<div style="background-color:#EFEFEF;position:relative; top:0px; left:0px; border:2px ridge #BBBBBB; width:200px; height:280px; font-family:Times New Roman; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; text-decoration:none;">
 <form action="" method="post" onsubmit="return true;">
  <div id="HangManTitle" style="font-size:22px; position:absolute; top:5px; width:200px; text-align:center;">
   Hangman
  </div>
  <div id="HangManConsole" style="font-size:16px; position:absolute; top:34px; text-align:center; width:200px;">
   Enter a letter: <input type="text" maxlength="1" size="1" id="HangManInput" name="HangManLetter" /><input type="hidden" value="true" name="send_letter" /><input type="submit" value="Go" name="send_letter_button" /><br />
   The word: <span id="HangManGuessWord"><?php echo $_SESSION['guessWord']; ?></span><br />
  </div>
  <div id="HangManImage" style="position:absolute; top:85px; left:22px;">
   <img src="http://www.hangman.symbolwebdesign.nl/hmimgs/hm<?php echo $_SESSION['error_amount']; ?>.bmp" id="HangManIMG" style="border:1px ridge #BBBBBB;" />
  </div>
  <div id="HangManMessage" style="font-size:16px; position:absolute; top:250px; width:200px; text-align:center;">
   <?php echo $_SESSION['message']; ?>
  </div>
 </form>
</div>
</body>
</html>

hi iam finished from my online strategy game but iwant add map to it players can see cities and their troops on map
any 1 can give me code?

Hey

First let me say I am not asking exactly how to do this. Just the best method of what I want to do. The idea is to have a database of every model of a dirt bike. A user who is logged in to the system can submit data for a dirt bike (I can create forms for this). On the main page of the database I need to be able to have the user select what model bike and year or years to find the information people submitted in a nice list. Do  you think this is to big of a project? I'm doing this as a hobby type thing so there really is no time schedule.

For making the database:

Would an array be best? Are there any examples somewhat close to what I'm talking about?