A few weeks ago we built a Tag Cloud using PHP and being fed by an array. This works well but really only is for concept since you would always need to be updating your array. This time we are going to build the same basic end result, but using a database instead of and array.

We will start off with creating the SQL table and that is done using CREATE TABLE. This table will have 3 columns (id, tag, count).

CREATE TABLE tags ( 
id int(11) NOT NULL,
tag varchar(100) NOT NULL,
count int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0'
);

Using whatever method you use, create the table in your database and then we will continue.

Next we need to modify the function "get_tag_data()" that read in the array in the previous tutorial.

function get_tag_data() { 
  mysql_connect('localhost', 'username', 'password');
  mysql_select_db('database');
  $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tags GROUP BY tag ORDER BY count DESC"); 
  while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { 
    $arr[$row['tag']] = $row['count'];
  } 
  ksort($arr); 
  return $arr; 
}

That is the new function, lets go through each step to get a better understanding of how it all works. The first step is to connect to the database, if you unfamiliar with this process check out this database connection tutorial. Then we query the database, using a "while" loop we grab our tags and build an array. The end result of this process is the same as the previous one, except for one major difference, we no longer have to edit the array. Use "ksort" to rearrange the tag list and finally return the new array just like we did before.

That entire process is pretty straightforward and from this point you use all the same code from the previous tutorial, only substituting the function.

If you have any questions, please post away.