![]() |
![]() |
Web Design Information |
|
![]() |
![]() |
Developing a Login System with PHP and MySQLJohn L This article is written by daBoss. daBoss is the Webmaster of Designer Banners. daBoss can be contacted at sales at designerbanners dot com. Developing a Login System with PHP and MySQL Most interactive websites nowadays would require a user to log in into the website’s system in order to provide a customized experience for the user. Once the user has logged in, the website will be able to provide a presentation that is tailored to the user’s preferences. A basic login system typically contains 3 components:
Such a system can be easily created using PHP and MySQL. Component 1 – Registration Component 1 is typically implemented using a simple HTML form that contains 3 fields and 2 buttons:
Assume that such a form is coded into a file named register.html. The following HTML code excerpt is a typical example. When the user has filled in all the fields, the register.php page is called when the user clicks on the Submit button. [form name="register" method="post" action="register.php"] [input name="login id" type="text" value="loginid" size="20"/][br] [input name="password" type="text" value="password" size="20"/][br] [input name="email" type="text" value="email" size="50"/][br] [input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/] [input type="reset" name="reset" value="reset"/] [/form] The following code excerpt can be used as part of register.php to process the registration. It connects to the MySQL database and inserts a line of data into the table used to store the registration information. @mysql_connect"localhost", "mysql_login", "mysql_pwd" or die"Cannot connect to DB!"; @mysql_select_db"tbl_login" or die"Cannot select DB!"; $sql="INSERT INTO login_tbl loginid, password and email VALUES ".$loginid.”,”.$password.”,”.$email.””; $r = mysql_query$sql; if!$r { $err=mysql_error; print $err; exit; } The code excerpt assumes that the MySQL table that is used to store the registration data is named tbl_login and contains 3 fields – the loginid, password and email fields. The values of the $loginid, $password and $email variables are passed in from the form in register.html using the post method. Component 2 – Verification and Authentication A registered user will want to log into the system to access the functionality provided by the website. The user will have to provide his login id and password for the system to verify and authenticate. This is typically done through a simple HTML form. This HTML form typically contains 2 fields and 2 buttons:
Assume that such a form is coded into a file named authenticate.html. The following HTML code excerpt is a typical example. When the user has filled in all the fields, the authenticate.php page is called when the user clicks on the Submit button. [form name="authenticate" method="post" action="authenticate.php"] [input name="login id" type="text" value="loginid" size="20"/][br] [input name="password" type="text" value="password" size="20"/][br] [input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/] [input type="reset" name="reset" value="reset"/] [/form] The following code excerpt can be used as part of authenticate.php to process the login request. It connects to the MySQL database and queries the table used to store the registration information. @mysql_connect"localhost", "mysql_login", "mysql_pwd" or die"Cannot connect to DB!"; @mysql_select_db"tbl_login" or die"Cannot select DB!"; $sql="SELECT loginid FROM login_tbl WHERE loginid=’".$loginid.”’ and password=’”.$password.”’”; $r = mysql_query$sql; if!$r { $err=mysql_error; print $err; exit; } ifmysql_affected_rows==0{ print "no such login in the system. please try again."; exit; } else{ print "successfully logged into system."; //proceed to perform website’s functionality – e.g. present information to the user } As in component 1, the code excerpt assumes that the MySQL table that is used to store the registration data is named tbl_login and contains 3 fields – the loginid, password and email fields. The values of the $loginid and $password variables are passed in from the form in authenticate.html using the post method. Component 3 – Forgot Password A registered user may forget his password to log into the website’s system. In this case, the user will need to supply his loginid for the system to retrieve his password and send the password to the user’s registered email address. This is typically done through a simple HTML form. This HTML form typically contains 1 field and 2 buttons: Assume that such a form is coded into a file named forgot.html. The following HTML code excerpt is a typical example. When the user has filled in all the fields, the forgot.php page is called when the user clicks on the Submit button. [form name="forgot" method="post" action="forgot.php"] [input name="login id" type="text" value="loginid" size="20"/][br] [input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/] [input type="reset" name="reset" value="reset"/] [/form] The following code excerpt can be used as part of forgot.php to process the login request. It connects to the MySQL database and queries the table used to store the registration information. @mysql_connect"localhost", "mysql_login", "mysql_pwd" or die"Cannot connect to DB!"; @mysql_select_db"tbl_login" or die"Cannot select DB!"; $sql="SELECT password, email FROM login_tbl WHERE loginid=’".$loginid.”’”; $r = mysql_query$sql; if!$r { $err=mysql_error; print $err; exit; } ifmysql_affected_rows==0{ print "no such login in the system. please try again."; exit; } else { $row=mysql_fetch_array$r; $password=$row["password"]; $email=$row["email"]; $subject="your password"; $header="from:you@yourdomain.com"; $content="your password is ".$password; mail$email, $subject, $row, $header; print "An email containing the password has been sent to you"; } As in component 1, the code excerpt assumes that the MySQL table that is used to store the registration data is named tbl_login and contains 3 fields – the loginid, password and email fields. The value of the $loginid variable is passed from the form in forgot.html using the post method. Conclusion The above example is to illustrate how a very basic login system can be implemented. The example can be enhanced to include password encryption and additional functionality – e.g. to allow users to edit their login information. - Used with the authors permission.
| ![]() | ![]() | ![]() | RELATED ARTICLES Search Engine Optimization and Web Site Usability Build a Web site and the people will come. What Can Lots Of Content Do For Your Site Today there are so many web sites on the web, but so few of them have good content and there are even fewer web sites that have large amounts of content. Why is the web like this For one most webmasters are trying to make a quick buck and others dont know where to begin or are too lazy to do the work. Questions to Ask when Designing a Website for clients Questions to ask when designing a Web Site for your client s.“Excerpt from the book: Graphic Artists Guild, Handbook Pricing & Ethical guidelines Written by: Brent Parker How Does Your Website Make Me Feel When people think about the Internet, they think about technology. When people hear that I am a Website strategy expert, they see me as a "techy type". Web Hosting: Which Is The Host With The Most So you want to publish a web site do you Welcome to the club. These days it seems that almost everyone has a web site of some kind, and thousands more continue to be launched every day. Its challenging enough to design a site and fill it with interesting content, but when all is said and done another challenge still remains - where to host it Affiliate Alternative; Google Adsense The Rise and Fall of Affiliate Programs Tips to Maintain your Website to Keep Visitors Coming Back When you design a website you should create it so that your visitors are constantly coming back for more. In order for you to keep your visitors coming back you need to keep upwith maintaining your website, and offering things thatwill keep your visitors busy. Beyond Web usability: Web credibility Web usability: Its old news Linking out is good Many websites I come across dont have a single link to another website. Ask the webmaster why not, and the answer you get is simple enough: "If I link to other websites people might leave my site." At this point I break the news that site visitors will leave your site. And theres nothing you can do about this. Mysterious Tel Aviv Lifestyle 2004 Israel. What do you think when your first hear this word Right, like most people you imagine what you probably saw on CNN or NBC. Blown up buses, Suicide Bombers, Military Operations, Outright Violence – all over the place. The Proper Way To Use The robot.txt File When optimizing your web site most webmasters don’t consider using the robot.txt file. This is a very important file for your site. It let the spiders and crawlers know what they can and can not index. This is helpful in keeping them out of folders that you do not want index like the admin or stats folder. Color Psychology for webpages Colour is an aspect of a website that is often picked haphazardly and without any thought from a beginner web designer. The lesser known quality of the colour of a website is that it can greatly affect the mood of your visitors. It is because of this that a websites colours need to be picked carefully. Switching Web Host Moving a website is not as difficult as you may think because it really is easy. There are few steps to follow carefully. Basic Design Principles Part 1 There are some very basic design principles that are important to know whether you’re a graphic designer, web designer, or even a photographer. Certain very basic design principles apply to all artistic fields and are necessary for the artist and valuable information for the consumer. 5 Tips For the Perfect Domain Name What is a domain name A domain name is the location of your website on the Internet. Your domain name will be what you become known by online so its important to get it right. The Meta Tag Myth The more the better right Wrong. At least when it comes to meta tags. The history of the meta tag started off as a nice tool that web sites could use to show the search engines what the site was about without the words showing up on the actual page. It seemed like a great idea until people started to abuse the meta tag. They would add highly searched for keywords that were unrelated to their site in their meta tags in hopes of attracting additional traffic. The search engines caught on and lowered the importance of meta tags - they figured out that if they put more emphasis on the visible content of a site, people would have a much more difficult time “cheating”. Turns out that they were right. Buyer Beware: Web Hosting, Registration, and Site Building "All in One" Package Nightmares Starting out in any type of online marketing or Internet business can be confusing and overwhelming. There are so many different aspects of a start-up: domain name registration and purchase, Web site host purchasing, and of course, the "building" of the Web site itself. This leaves many consumers looking for an easier way to purchase everything in one place, both to save money and to save time. Creating Your Own HTML Email Templates in Outlook Step 1 The Topic Of Your Website The first thing you will have to deal building your website has nothing to do with the web design itself, its me related to content writing but it must be defined and will effect the rest of your actions. So first of all you need to decide what the topic of your future website is. Topic is very closely connected to another web design issue: keywords. The keywords you select will depend upon the topic you have chosen. When thinking about website topic ask yourself a few questions: What is the goal of the site you are making What are you trying to achieve with your site. Specify a goal, preferably in one short sentence. Web Site Professionalism What Is It Your web site should be-visitor friendly to navigatesearch engine friendly for the crawlersAutomated with ecommerce and subscription forms... ![]() |
home | site map |
© 2005 |