How to create a blog in PHP and MySQL database - Backend


This is part 3 of a 4-part series on How To Build a Blog with PHP and MySQL. You can view the previous two parts here: part 1, part 2.

In the last two parts of this tutorial, we finished creating the public area. We even set up our database, inserted some data into the database tables and were able to query this and display on the page. But we don't always want to create users, posts, topics using a database client like PHPMyAdmin, do we? We want an interface on the website and a logged in user with admin privileges to do that. 

When a user with admin privileges logs in, they are automatically redirected to the admin dashboard. But we haven't created an admin user in our system yet. We will do that soon.

In your complete-blog-php/admin folder, create a file named dashboard.php.

dashboard.php:

<?php  include('../config.php'); ?>
        <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/admin_functions.php'); ?>
        <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/head_section.php'); ?>
        <title>Admin | Dashboard</title>
</head>
<body>
        <div class="header">
                <div class="logo">
                        <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL .'admin/dashboard.php' ?>">
                                <h1>LifeBlog - Admin</h1>
                        </a>
                </div>
                <?php if (isset($_SESSION['user'])): ?>
                        <div class="user-info">
                                <span><?php echo $_SESSION['user']['username'] ?></span> &nbsp; &nbsp; 
                                <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL . '/logout.php'; ?>" class="logout-btn">logout</a>
                        </div>
                <?php endif ?>
        </div>
        <div class="container dashboard">
                <h1>Welcome</h1>
                <div class="stats">
                        <a href="users.php" class="first">
                                <span>43</span> <br>
                                <span>Newly registered users</span>
                        </a>
                        <a href="posts.php">
                                <span>43</span> <br>
                                <span>Published posts</span>
                        </a>
                        <a>
                                <span>43</span> <br>
                                <span>Published comments</span>
                        </a>
                </div>
                <br><br><br>
                <div class="buttons">
                        <a href="users.php">Add Users</a>
                        <a href="posts.php">Add Posts</a>
                </div>
        </div>
</body>
</html>
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On your browser, visit http://localhost/complete-blog-php/admin/dashboard.php and you will see that there is no styling and there are error messages about failure to include some two files. That's because we have not yet created these files. We'll do that soon.

Create a folder inside your admin folder named includes. 

The reason we have created a separate includes folder for the admin area is to ensure that all admin files are in one folder (admin). Later on, we can strengthen the security of the admin folder using htaccess authentication. We won't be doing that in this tutorial though.

In this newly created includes folder, create a file named  head_section.php. Open head_section.php and add this code to it:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<!-- Google Fonts -->
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Averia+Serif+Libre|Noto+Serif|Tangerine" rel="stylesheet">
<!-- Font awesome -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.7.0/css/font-awesome.min.css" />
<!-- ckeditor -->
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/ckeditor/4.8.0/ckeditor.js"></script>
<!-- Styling for public area -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../static/css/admin_styling.css">

Reload the dashboard.php page on the browser. Now the error message that remains is for just one file (admin_functions.php). We'll come to that soon.

Once in the backend, the user can create, read, update and delete users, posts, and topics. Let's start with users. In your admin folder, create a file named users.php

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Now open users.php and add this code to it:

users.php:

<?php  include('../config.php'); ?>
<?php  include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/admin_functions.php'); ?>
<?php 
        // Get all admin users from DB
        $admins = getAdminUsers();
        $roles = ['Admin', 'Author'];                           
?>
<?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/head_section.php'); ?>
        <title>Admin | Manage users</title>
</head>
<body>
        <!-- admin navbar -->
        <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/navbar.php') ?>
        <div class="container content">
                <!-- Left side menu -->
                <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/menu.php') ?>
                <!-- Middle form - to create and edit  -->
                <div class="action">
                        <h1 class="page-title">Create/Edit Admin User</h1>

                        <form method="post" action="<?php echo BASE_URL . 'admin/users.php'; ?>" >

                                <!-- validation errors for the form -->
                                <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/includes/errors.php') ?>

                                <!-- if editing user, the id is required to identify that user -->
                                <?php if ($isEditingUser === true): ?>
                                        <input type="hidden" name="admin_id" value="<?php echo $admin_id; ?>">
                                <?php endif ?>

                                <input type="text" name="username" value="<?php echo $username; ?>" placeholder="Username">
                                <input type="email" name="email" value="<?php echo $email ?>" placeholder="Email">
                                <input type="password" name="password" placeholder="Password">
                                <input type="password" name="passwordConfirmation" placeholder="Password confirmation">
                                <select name="role">
                                        <option value="" selected disabled>Assign role</option>
                                        <?php foreach ($roles as $key => $role): ?>
                                                <option value="<?php echo $role; ?>"><?php echo $role; ?></option>
                                        <?php endforeach ?>
                                </select>

                                <!-- if editing user, display the update button instead of create button -->
                                <?php if ($isEditingUser === true): ?> 
                                        <button type="submit" class="btn" name="update_admin">UPDATE</button>
                                <?php else: ?>
                                        <button type="submit" class="btn" name="create_admin">Save User</button>
                                <?php endif ?>
                        </form>
                </div>
                <!-- // Middle form - to create and edit -->

                <!-- Display records from DB-->
                <div class="table-div">
                        <!-- Display notification message -->
                        <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/includes/messages.php') ?>

                        <?php if (empty($admins)): ?>
                                <h1>No admins in the database.</h1>
                        <?php else: ?>
                                <table class="table">
                                        <thead>
                                                <th>N</th>
                                                <th>Admin</th>
                                                <th>Role</th>
                                                <th colspan="2">Action</th>
                                        </thead>
                                        <tbody>
                                        <?php foreach ($admins as $key => $admin): ?>
                                                <tr>
                                                        <td><?php echo $key + 1; ?></td>
                                                        <td>
                                                                <?php echo $admin['username']; ?>, &nbsp;
                                                                <?php echo $admin['email']; ?>    
                                                        </td>
                                                        <td><?php echo $admin['role']; ?></td>
                                                        <td>
                                                                <a class="fa fa-pencil btn edit"
                                                                        href="users.php?edit-admin=<?php echo $admin['id'] ?>">
                                                                </a>
                                                        </td>
                                                        <td>
                                                                <a class="fa fa-trash btn delete" 
                                                                    href="users.php?delete-admin=<?php echo $admin['id'] ?>">
                                                                </a>
                                                        </td>
                                                </tr>
                                        <?php endforeach ?>
                                        </tbody>
                                </table>
                        <?php endif ?>
                </div>
                <!-- // Display records from DB -->
        </div>
</body>
</html>

This is all we will need to do in the users.php file. Creating, editing, and deletion of a user will be done in this one file.

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At the top of the users.php file, we are calling a function getAdminUsers() which returns an array of all admin users from the database. This function is to be defined inside the admin_functions.php file which we haven't yet created but you can see it included in our users.php file just before the function call.

In your admin folder, create admin_functions.php and add this code to it:

admin_functions.php:

<?php 
// Admin user variables
$admin_id = 0;
$isEditingUser = false;
$username = "";
$role = "";
$email = "";
// general variables
$errors = [];

/* - - - - - - - - - - 
-  Admin users actions
- - - - - - - - - - -*/
// if user clicks the create admin button
if (isset($_POST['create_admin'])) {
        createAdmin($_POST);
}
// if user clicks the Edit admin button
if (isset($_GET['edit-admin'])) {
        $isEditingUser = true;
        $admin_id = $_GET['edit-admin'];
        editAdmin($admin_id);
}
// if user clicks the update admin button
if (isset($_POST['update_admin'])) {
        updateAdmin($_POST);
}
// if user clicks the Delete admin button
if (isset($_GET['delete-admin'])) {
        $admin_id = $_GET['delete-admin'];
        deleteAdmin($admin_id);
}


/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
* - Returns all admin users and their corresponding roles
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
function getAdminUsers(){
        global $conn, $roles;
        $sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE role IS NOT NULL";
        $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
        $users = mysqli_fetch_all($result, MYSQLI_ASSOC);

        return $users;
}
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* - Escapes form submitted value, hence, preventing SQL injection
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
function esc(String $value){
        // bring the global db connect object into function
        global $conn;
        // remove empty space sorrounding string
        $val = trim($value); 
        $val = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $value);
        return $val;
}
// Receives a string like 'Some Sample String'
// and returns 'some-sample-string'
function makeSlug(String $string){
        $string = strtolower($string);
        $slug = preg_replace('/[^A-Za-z0-9-]+/', '-', $string);
        return $slug;
}
?>

Reload the dashboard.php page on your browser and the error message is gone.

Next is to include the navbar.php page and the menu.php page. These are repeating segments of admin pages just as was the case with the public area.

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So, create these 2 files inside admin/includes folder: navbar.php and menu.php.

navbar.php:

<div class="header">
        <div class="logo">
                <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL .'admin/dashboard.php' ?>">
                        <h1>LifeBlog - Admin</h1>
                </a>
        </div>
        <div class="user-info">
                <span>Awa</span> &nbsp; &nbsp; <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL . '/logout.php'; ?>" class="logout-btn">logout</a>
        </div>
</div>

menu.php:

<div class="menu">
        <div class="card">
                <div class="card-header">
                        <h2>Actions</h2>
                </div>
                <div class="card-content">
                        <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL . 'admin/create_post.php' ?>">Create Posts</a>
                        <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL . 'admin/posts.php' ?>">Manage Posts</a>
                        <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL . 'admin/users.php' ?>">Manage Users</a>
                        <a href="<?php echo BASE_URL . 'admin/topics.php' ?>">Manage Topics</a>
                </div>
        </div>
</div>

Now let's create styling for the admin section. Inside complete-blog-php/static/css/ folder, create a file named admin_styling.css and add this code to it:

/* * * * * * * * * *
* STYLING DEFAULTS
* * * * * * * * * */
* { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; }
a { text-decoration: none; }
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { font-family: 'Noto Serif', serif; }
/* forms */
form { width: 60%; margin: 5px auto; padding-bottom: 50px; }
form input[type=file], input[type=email], input[type=password], input[type=text], 
form select, form textarea {
        width: 100%;
        display: block;
        padding: 13px 13px;
        font-size: 1em;
        margin: 5px auto 10px;
        border-radius: 3px;
        box-sizing : border-box;
        background: transparent;
        border: 1px solid #3E606F;
}
input[type="checkbox"] { height: 20px; float: left; }
form button { float: right; margin-left: 24%; }
form input:focus { outline: none; }
label { margin-top: 20px; float: left; }
/* tables */
table { border-collapse: collapse; width: 70%; margin: 20px auto; }
th, td { padding: 8px; text-align: left; border: 1px solid #ddd; }
th { text-align: center;}
/* buttons */
.btn {
        color: white;
        background: #4E6166;
        text-align: center;
        border: none;
        border-radius: 5px;
        display: block;
        letter-spacing: .1em;
        padding: 13px 20px;
        text-decoration: none;
}
/* * * * * * * * * *
* HEADER
* * * * * * * * * */
.header {
        padding: 15px 45px;
        font-family: 'Noto Serif', serif;
        color: white;
        background: black;
}
.header .logo { width: 50%; float: left; }
.header .logo h1 { color: white; }
.header .user-info { width: 10%; margin-top: 10px; float: right;}
.header .logout-btn { color: red; text-decoration: none; }
.header:after{ content: ""; display: block; clear: both; }
/* * * * * * * * * *
* DASHBOARD
* * * * * * * * * */
.container {
        width: 95%;
        margin: 5px auto 50px;
        border: 1px solid #BFBCB3;
        padding: 10px 0px 50px;
}
.container:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; }
.container.dashboard h1 { text-align: center; margin: 25px; }
.container.dashboard .stats a {
        display: inline-block;
        padding: 30px;
        margin: 5px;
        width: 25%;
        text-align: center;
        border-radius: 3px;
        border: 1px solid #BFBCB3;
}
.container.dashboard .stats a.first { margin-left: 25px; }
.container.dashboard .stats a:hover { cursor: pointer; background-color: #E1E1E1; }
.container.dashboard .buttons { margin-left: 15px; }
.container.dashboard .buttons a {
        display: inline-block;
        margin: 10px;
        text-decoration: none;
        color: #444;
        padding: 10px 25px;
        border: none;
        background-color: #0E7D92;
        color: white;
}
/* * * * * * * * * *
* PAGE CONTENT
* * * * * * * * * */
.container.content .menu { width: 16%; float: left; padding: 40px 10px; }
/* Menu card */
.container.content .menu .card .card-header {
        padding: 10px;
        text-align: center;
        border-radius: 3px 3px 0px 0px;
        background: #3E606F;
}
.container.content .menu .card .card-header h2 { color: white; }
.container.content .menu .card .card-content a {
        display: block;
        box-sizing: border-box;
        padding: 8px 10px;
        border-bottom: 1px solid #e4e1e1;
        color: #444;
}
.container.content .menu .card .card-content a:hover {
        padding-left: 20px; background: #F9F9F9; transition: 0.1s;
}
/* Actions div (at the middle) */
.container.content .action { width: 35%; float: left; text-align: center; }
.container.content .action form { width: 90%; }
.container.content .action .page-title { margin: 25px; }
.container.content .action.create-post-div { width: 80%; }
/* Table div (Displaying records from DB) */
.table-div { float: left; width: 47%; }
.table-div .message { width: 90%; margin-top: 20px; }
.table-div table { width: 90%; }
.table-div a.fa { color: white; padding: 3px; }
.table-div .edit { background: #004220; }
.table-div .delete { background: #F70E1A; }
.table-div .publish { background: red; }
.table-div .unpublish { background: green; }
/* * * * * * * * * *
* VALIDATION ERRORS
* * * * * * * * * */
.message {
        width: 100%; 
        margin: 0px auto; 
        padding: 10px 0px; 
        color: #3c763d; 
        background: #dff0d8; 
        border: 1px solid #3c763d;
        border-radius: 5px; 
        text-align: center;
}
.error {color: #a94442; background: #f2dede; border: 1px solid #a94442; margin-bottom: 20px; }
.validation_errors p {text-align: left;margin-left: 10px;}
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In your browser, go to http://localhost/complete-blog-php/admin/users.php you'll see an error that says file messages.php is not found. Create a file named messages.php in your complete-blog-ph/includes folder and add this code in it:

<?php if (isset($_SESSION['message'])) : ?>
      <div class="message" >
        <p>
          <?php 
                echo $_SESSION['message']; 
                unset($_SESSION['message']);
          ?>
        </p>
      </div>
<?php endif ?>

This displays notification messages to give the user feedback on their actions. 

Create, Read, Update and Deleting Admin users

The users.php page already presents a form for  both creating and updating an admin user, as well as a table for listing and deleting users. All that is left is to add the PHP functions that perform these actions. So open admin_functions.php file and add this code directly after the Admin user actions (the if statements) at the top of the page and before the getAdminUsers() function:

admin_functions.php:

/* - - - - - - - - - - - -
-  Admin users functions
- - - - - - - - - - - - -*/
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* - Receives new admin data from form
* - Create new admin user
* - Returns all admin users with their roles 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
function createAdmin($request_values){
        global $conn, $errors, $role, $username, $email;
        $username = esc($request_values['username']);
        $email = esc($request_values['email']);
        $password = esc($request_values['password']);
        $passwordConfirmation = esc($request_values['passwordConfirmation']);

        if(isset($request_values['role'])){
                $role = esc($request_values['role']);
        }
        // form validation: ensure that the form is correctly filled
        if (empty($username)) { array_push($errors, "Uhmm...We gonna need the username"); }
        if (empty($email)) { array_push($errors, "Oops.. Email is missing"); }
        if (empty($role)) { array_push($errors, "Role is required for admin users");}
        if (empty($password)) { array_push($errors, "uh-oh you forgot the password"); }
        if ($password != $passwordConfirmation) { array_push($errors, "The two passwords do not match"); }
        // Ensure that no user is registered twice. 
        // the email and usernames should be unique
        $user_check_query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username='$username' 
                                                        OR email='$email' LIMIT 1";
        $result = mysqli_query($conn, $user_check_query);
        $user = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
        if ($user) { // if user exists
                if ($user['username'] === $username) {
                  array_push($errors, "Username already exists");
                }

                if ($user['email'] === $email) {
                  array_push($errors, "Email already exists");
                }
        }
        // register user if there are no errors in the form
        if (count($errors) == 0) {
                $password = md5($password);//encrypt the password before saving in the database
                $query = "INSERT INTO users (username, email, role, password, created_at, updated_at) 
                                  VALUES('$username', '$email', '$role', '$password', now(), now())";
                mysqli_query($conn, $query);

                $_SESSION['message'] = "Admin user created successfully";
                header('location: users.php');
                exit(0);
        }
}
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* - Takes admin id as parameter
* - Fetches the admin from database
* - sets admin fields on form for editing
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
function editAdmin($admin_id)
{
        global $conn, $username, $role, $isEditingUser, $admin_id, $email;

        $sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=$admin_id LIMIT 1";
        $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
        $admin = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);

        // set form values ($username and $email) on the form to be updated
        $username = $admin['username'];
        $email = $admin['email'];
}

/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
* - Receives admin request from form and updates in database
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
function updateAdmin($request_values){
        global $conn, $errors, $role, $username, $isEditingUser, $admin_id, $email;
        // get id of the admin to be updated
        $admin_id = $request_values['admin_id'];
        // set edit state to false
        $isEditingUser = false;


        $username = esc($request_values['username']);
        $email = esc($request_values['email']);
        $password = esc($request_values['password']);
        $passwordConfirmation = esc($request_values['passwordConfirmation']);
        if(isset($request_values['role'])){
                $role = $request_values['role'];
        }
        // register user if there are no errors in the form
        if (count($errors) == 0) {
                //encrypt the password (security purposes)
                $password = md5($password);

                $query = "UPDATE users SET username='$username', email='$email', role='$role', password='$password' WHERE id=$admin_id";
                mysqli_query($conn, $query);

                $_SESSION['message'] = "Admin user updated successfully";
                header('location: users.php');
                exit(0);
        }
}
// delete admin user 
function deleteAdmin($admin_id) {
        global $conn;
        $sql = "DELETE FROM users WHERE id=$admin_id";
        if (mysqli_query($conn, $sql)) {
                $_SESSION['message'] = "User successfully deleted";
                header("location: users.php");
                exit(0);
        }
}

The code we just added has 3 main parts: initialization of admin user variables, Admin user actions, and Admin user functions, in that order. This is the same format in which we will add code for topics which is coming next. For now, you can already create, read, update and delete a user.

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Now go to http://localhost/complete/admin/users.php. Create a user and assign that user Admin role. Make sure you remember the username and password of this admin user because in the future we will log in with this user. For example:

username: John, email: [email protected], password: johndoe.

Create, Read, Update and Delete Topics

For topics, we are going to create just one file, topics.php inside complete-blog-php/admin/ folder.

complete-blog-php/admin/topics.php:

<?php  include('../config.php'); ?>
<?php  include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/admin_functions.php'); ?>
<?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/head_section.php'); ?>
<!-- Get all topics from DB -->
<?php $topics = getAllTopics();      ?>
        <title>Admin | Manage Topics</title>
</head>
<body>
        <!-- admin navbar -->
        <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/navbar.php') ?>
        <div class="container content">
                <!-- Left side menu -->
                <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/admin/includes/menu.php') ?>

                <!-- Middle form - to create and edit -->
                <div class="action">
                        <h1 class="page-title">Create/Edit Topics</h1>
                        <form method="post" action="<?php echo BASE_URL . 'admin/topics.php'; ?>" >
                                <!-- validation errors for the form -->
                                <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/includes/errors.php') ?>
                                <!-- if editing topic, the id is required to identify that topic -->
                                <?php if ($isEditingTopic === true): ?>
                                        <input type="hidden" name="topic_id" value="<?php echo $topic_id; ?>">
                                <?php endif ?>
                                <input type="text" name="topic_name" value="<?php echo $topic_name; ?>" placeholder="Topic">
                                <!-- if editing topic, display the update button instead of create button -->
                                <?php if ($isEditingTopic === true): ?> 
                                        <button type="submit" class="btn" name="update_topic">UPDATE</button>
                                <?php else: ?>
                                        <button type="submit" class="btn" name="create_topic">Save Topic</button>
                                <?php endif ?>
                        </form>
                </div>
                <!-- // Middle form - to create and edit -->

                <!-- Display records from DB-->
                <div class="table-div">
                        <!-- Display notification message -->
                        <?php include(ROOT_PATH . '/includes/messages.php') ?>
                        <?php if (empty($topics)): ?>
                                <h1>No topics in the database.</h1>
                        <?php else: ?>
                                <table class="table">
                                        <thead>
                                                <th>N</th>
                                                <th>Topic Name</th>
                                                <th colspan="2">Action</th>
                                        </thead>
                                        <tbody>
                                        <?php foreach ($topics as $key => $topic): ?>
                                                <tr>
                                                        <td><?php echo $key + 1; ?></td>
                                                        <td><?php echo $topic['name']; ?></td>
                                                        <td>
                                                                <a class="fa fa-pencil btn edit"
                                                                        href="topics.php?edit-topic=<?php echo $topic['id'] ?>">
                                                                </a>
                                                        </td>
                                                        <td>
                                                                <a class="fa fa-trash btn delete"                                                            
                                                                        href="topics.php?delete-topic=<?php echo $topic['id'] ?>">
                                                                </a>
                                                        </td>
                                                </tr>
                                        <?php endforeach ?>
                                        </tbody>
                                </table>
                        <?php endif ?>
                </div>
                <!-- // Display records from DB -->
        </div>
</body>
</html>

Next we write the PHP code to inside admin_functions.php to perform these operations on topic.

The following code has three sections. Each section has been labelled on top using a comment and the three are variables, actions and functions. So in your admin_functions.php file, add the following code to it but make sure you split it accordingly as indicated below using the comments.

admin_functions.php:

<?php 
// Admin user variables
// ... varaibles here ...

// Topics variables
$topic_id = 0;
$isEditingTopic = false;
$topic_name = "";

/* - - - - - - - - - - 
-  Admin users actions
- - - - - - - - - - -*/
// ... 

/* - - - - - - - - - - 
-  Topic actions
- - - - - - - - - - -*/
// if user clicks the create topic button
if (isset($_POST['create_topic'])) { createTopic($_POST); }
// if user clicks the Edit topic button
if (isset($_GET['edit-topic'])) {
        $isEditingTopic = true;
        $topic_id = $_GET['edit-topic'];
        editTopic($topic_id);
}
// if user clicks the update topic button
if (isset($_POST['update_topic'])) {
        updateTopic($_POST);
}
// if user clicks the Delete topic button
if (isset($_GET['delete-topic'])) {
        $topic_id = $_GET['delete-topic'];
        deleteTopic($topic_id);
}


/* - - - - - - - - - - - -
-  Admin users functions
- - - - - - - - - - - - -*/
// ...

/* - - - - - - - - - - 
-  Topics functions
- - - - - - - - - - -*/
// get all topics from DB
function getAllTopics() {
        global $conn;
        $sql = "SELECT * FROM topics";
        $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
        $topics = mysqli_fetch_all($result, MYSQLI_ASSOC);
        return $topics;
}
function createTopic($request_values){
        global $conn, $errors, $topic_name;
        $topic_name = esc($request_values['topic_name']);
        // create slug: if topic is "Life Advice", return "life-advice" as slug
        $topic_slug = makeSlug($topic_name);
        // validate form
        if (empty($topic_name)) { 
                array_push($errors, "Topic name required"); 
        }
        // Ensure that no topic is saved twice. 
        $topic_check_query = "SELECT * FROM topics WHERE slug='$topic_slug' LIMIT 1";
        $result = mysqli_query($conn, $topic_check_query);
        if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) { // if topic exists
                array_push($errors, "Topic already exists");
        }
        // register topic if there are no errors in the form
        if (count($errors) == 0) {
                $query = "INSERT INTO topics (name, slug) 
                                  VALUES('$topic_name', '$topic_slug')";
                mysqli_query($conn, $query);

                $_SESSION['message'] = "Topic created successfully";
                header('location: topics.php');
                exit(0);
        }
}
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* - Takes topic id as parameter
* - Fetches the topic from database
* - sets topic fields on form for editing
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
function editTopic($topic_id) {
        global $conn, $topic_name, $isEditingTopic, $topic_id;
        $sql = "SELECT * FROM topics WHERE id=$topic_id LIMIT 1";
        $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
        $topic = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
        // set form values ($topic_name) on the form to be updated
        $topic_name = $topic['name'];
}
function updateTopic($request_values) {
        global $conn, $errors, $topic_name, $topic_id;
        $topic_name = esc($request_values['topic_name']);
        $topic_id = esc($request_values['topic_id']);
        // create slug: if topic is "Life Advice", return "life-advice" as slug
        $topic_slug = makeSlug($topic_name);
        // validate form
        if (empty($topic_name)) { 
                array_push($errors, "Topic name required"); 
        }
        // register topic if there are no errors in the form
        if (count($errors) == 0) {
                $query = "UPDATE topics SET name='$topic_name', slug='$topic_slug' WHERE id=$topic_id";
                mysqli_query($conn, $query);

                $_SESSION['message'] = "Topic updated successfully";
                header('location: topics.php');
                exit(0);
        }
}
// delete topic 
function deleteTopic($topic_id) {
        global $conn;
        $sql = "DELETE FROM topics WHERE id=$topic_id";
        if (mysqli_query($conn, $sql)) {
                $_SESSION['message'] = "Topic successfully deleted";
                header("location: topics.php");
                exit(0);
        }
}

With this, we can create, read, update and delete topics. 

Thanks for your patience. In the next part, we add a form for creating posts. We use ckeditor to give a user the ability to add styling to texts, images, and lists.

See you there!

Awa Melvine

Next part: Admin posts creation

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