I want to send out serials that I have already generated out to the users that download the software. Only one serial per customer.

I have an idea for the table

serial | inUse | email
412347129 0 yourmail@mail.com

So when a client registers his name and email it will get stored in a table.

the php script will call a random serial form the database and set the "inUse" field of that serial to "1" and also update the email field with the new user email. This is to see that the serial is in use and that the serial belongs to a certain customer email.

So every time a new customer registers, the php script will pull a random serial from the db and check that it's not in use and send it to that customer and then register it again to the new customer.
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What I would like to know if this is a good way of doing this and are there alternative ways. Just remember that the serials are already there.

Thanks in advance.

Wouldn't it be simpler to do something along the lines of.

$serial = mt_rand(000000000,999999999);
mysql_query("INSERT into `serials` (`serial`, `email`) VALUES('$serial', '$email')");

Then instead of having to input loads, or even create a script to generate loads which will take up a lot of your database space. Why not just do it so it only inputs ones in use, if they input a serial that is not in the table then it just refuses access?

Obviously you're going to want to add in an if statement to make sure it is unique. I can post that if you want too just figured you wouldn't need it as it's simple stuff

Hope this helps.

Hi there

Thanks for the reply. The problem is I have a windows based exe ebooks software, it generates it's own serials. So all I do is import the serials in to the db.

So now all I need is to pull out a random serial that is not in use and send it to the new user. The new users email will be saved according to the serial.

Actually it's kind of simple, I just need the serials to be send out and I need to know which serial belongs to which user in the end.

I figured it would be easy, was just wondering if someone else had a better solution for me.

Thanks for the help, really appreciated

"SELECT serialno FROM table WHERE used = false;"

Give the user the first record returned.