Hi all.

I'm having a problem here. I want a script to search one field on a mysql database every 2 or 3 seconds. I need it to do this without reloading the page.

I've searched around and can't seem to find an answer. Tried using sleep(); function, but it's not working.

Here's what I tried so far:

//search the database:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM partidas WHERE id='$id_do_jogo' ",$connect);

$salazar = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

//what's in the guest column?
$jogador_dois = $salazar['guest'];
    
//oh, nothing? than we...        
while(is_null($jogador_dois)) {

//...print this out:
     echo "<br>Column value is 0. Trying in another 2 seconds.";

     //Wait 2 seconds and try again.    
     sleep(2);
}

//Or if it is NOT null:
echo "Value different from zero!";
exit();

Any ideas how I could get the script to print out the line "Column value is 0..." and then it tries looking at the database again?

Any help is welcome and apreciated.

I don't think you can do that with PHP. PHP is executed before the page loads and therefore my understanding is there is no way to do anything dynamically with php after is has written to the page.

You will probably have to use a different language

The example you show would only spit out the page after it finished the sript execution displaying multiple instances of the line "<br>Column value is 0. Trying in another 2 seconds." until it finally escaped the while() loop.

The best solution for you is to use AJAX.
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/javascript-forum/52934-round-up-of-90-ajax-tutorials.html

Look at the Client-Server Communications tutorials.

PHP is server side script. It cannot execute once it's reached the clients browser with out going back to the server. Javascript is what is needed here. Under AJAX I am certain there are hundreds of scripts avaibale that can manage this.

Still if you implement ajax you will have to write a simple php script which receives an argument, searches the DB and echoes the output.