php scoring system

karriston posted this at 15:25 — 19th June 2005.

Joined: May 2005

I'm in a bit of a pickle at the minute, I'm new to PHP and I need some help.

I put a scoring system on my site so that when a user logs in, they gain points and when they gain a certain amount of points they go up a level and gain access to more features. It's kind of like newgrounds' only I have one little problem. I only want them to get points for logging in twice a day. And I want them to get points for completing competitions, and I only want them to get points once for finishing the competition (they have to click a link to get the points for the comp). Speaking of which, how do give them points for clicking links?

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IanD posted this at 21:40 — 22nd June 2005.

They have: 222 posts

Joined: Sep 1999

I'm going to assume you're using a MySQL database, PHP5, the MySQLi extension and OO notation. I'd add Points (SMALLINT unsigned) and Rank (TINYINT unsigned) fields to your accounts table. A rank of 0 could mean no access to anything, 1 would mean access to some things, 2 more things, etc.

Write a function to update the points of an account. It would need to take a username (or ID, whichever you're using) and the number of points to increment as parameters. So, something like

<?php
function AddPoints($username, $increment)
{
  global $databaseLink;

  // Increment Points. \"accounts\" is name of db table w/ account info, \"points\" is name of field w/ point info
  $result = $databaseLink->query(\"SELECT points FROM accounts WHERE username=$username\");
  $row = $result->fetch_array(MYSQLI_ASSOC);
  $currentPoints = $row['points'];
  $result->close();

  $currentPoints += $increment
  $databaseLink->query(\"UPDATE accounts SET points=$currentPoints WHERE username=$username\");  

  // Update Rank
  switch ($currentPoints)
  {
  case ($currentPoints >= 0 && $currentPoints < 100):
    $databaseLink->query(\"UPDATE accounts SET rank=1 WHERE username=$username\");
    break;
  case ($currentPoints >= 100 && $currentPoints < 200):
    $databaseLink->query(\"UPDATE accounts SET rank=2 WHERE username=$username\");
    break;
  case ($currentPoints >= 200):
    $databaseLink->query(\"UPDATE accounts SET rank=3 WHERE username=$username\");
    break;
  }
}
?>

On the page that contains each feature, you'd check their rank and display the feature or not accordingly.

The points for logging in twice a day can be handled several ways depending on what you want? Assuming you only care about twice a day, I'd have a field in my accounts table w/ the timestamp from the last time they logged in. Each time they log in, check that and if it was within 24 hours, then add points.

When they complete a competition, call the addpoints fuction w/ however many points you want to add.

You'll have to use a JavaScript to detect clicking on the link, or just have a script on the page that was linked to.

To prevent people from taking competitions more than once, I'd have a CompetitionResults table in the database listing the ID number of the competition, and the username of the person who completed it. Only add to the table when someone completes a competition. Then you can check against it before letting someone take a competition

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