On 6/29/06, Adam Zey <azey@xxxxxx> wrote:
Just throwing an idea out there, but you can do the sorting entirely in the SQL query. The trick is to figure out the best way. The first idea that came to mind (and it sucks, but it works), is a text field with padded numbers separated by dots, and the number is the position in relation to the parent. So, with this: Post 1 Post 3 Post 5 Post 6 Post 4 Post 7 Post 2 Post 8 Now, to the helper field would contain this for each post: Post 1: 1 Post 2: 2 Post 3: 1.1 Post 4: 1.2 Post 5: 1.1.1 Post 6: 1.1.2 Post 7: 1.2.1 Post 8: 2.1 Now, by pure ascii sorting in that field, that would sort out to: Post 1: 1 Post 3: 1.1 Post 5: 1.1.1 Post 6: 1.1.2 Post 4: 1.2 Post 7: 1.2.1 Post 2: 2 Post 8: 2.1 Which is the correct sort order. The depth of the post (how far to indent it?) could be told in PHP by counting the number of periods, or storing it in the database.
The indentation part I've already sort of figured out--it uses some php to create a divs-within-divs structure, then using some simple CSS I can get the appropriate level of indentation.
Now, how to figure out what to put in that field for each post? We need to do two things. First, each post needs to store the number of children. Next, when a new post is made, we do three things (Keeping in mind that in real life I'd pad each "entry" in the sort helper field with zeros on the left up to some large number): 1) Get the sort helper field of the parent and the parent's child count field 2) Take the parent's sort help field, and add on a period and the parent's child count plus one, insert the child. 3) Update the parent's child count. OK, now, this method sucks. It's slow, and limits the number of child posts to whatever you pad (In itself, not a big issue, if each post can only have, say, a thousand direct childs (which each themselves can have a thousand childs), not a huge issue). The slow part from ascii sorting everything is the problem, I'd think. I've never done threaded anything before, so I assume there's a better solution. I'm just saying that the job CAN be done entirely with SQL sorting. And probably faster than your proposed method of resorting everything once PHP gets ahold of it. It should be noted that you'd need each post to have a sort of superparent field that stored the topmost parent so that you could do something simple like selecting ten superparents and all their children.
Regards, Adam.
Thanks for the help Adam, I'll try to wrap my head around your response... - Ben -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
