Ifractions-web/php

Configuring save.php

iFractions is developed to run mainly on the client side. However, it communicates with a MySQL database to save information about the player's progress after each level. There's a PHP file called save.php that manages the connection between the game and the database. Also, the asynchronous communication is stablished using XMLHTTPRequest.

How to set up the database connection correctly

First you'll need a MySQL database installed on the server (more info in https://www.mysql.com).

Now, in order for iFractions to successfully establish a connection to the database you must:

1. create and set up the database for the game.
2. update php/save.php
3. update js/globals/globals_functions.js

1) Creating the database for iFractions

Considering the database name to be db_ifractins and the table name to be ifractions, you can setup the MySQL database as follows:

CREATE DATABASE db_ifractions;

USE db_ifractions;

CREATE TABLE ifractions (
    line_id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    line_hostip varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
    line_playername varchar(256) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_datetime varchar(20) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_lang varchar(6) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_game varchar(10) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_mode varchar(1) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_operator varchar(5) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_level int(5) NOT NULL,
    line_mappos int(5) NOT NULL,
    line_result varchar(6) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_time varchar(20) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    line_details varchar(120) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_general_ci NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (line_id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT = 1 DEFAULT CHARSET = latin1;

Note that each column has the prefix line_.

2) save.php

You have to set values for the following variables in php/save.php to match the database's:

$servername = "localhost";  // INSERT MySQL server
$username = "your_db_username"; // INSERT MySQL user name
$password = "your_db_password"; // INSERT MySQL password
$dbname = "db_ifractions";  // INSERT database name (default=db_ifractions) 
$tablename = "ifractions";  // INSERT table name (default=ifractions)

3) globals_functions.js

Inside js/globals/globals_functions.js there's a global function called sendToDatabase(). When the player's information is collected after each game, the game file sends it as a parameter to sendToDatabase(). It makes an asynchronous call to php/save.php, that executes the connection to the database.

const data = 'line_ip='// INSERT the IP of the machine where the MySQL was set up
    + '&line_name=' + // player's name
    + '&line_lang=' + // selected language for the game
    + // data received from the game as parameter to this function

Where do we use the database in the code?

There is a function postScore() in every game file:

• js/games/squareOne.js
• js/games/squareTwo.js
• js/games/circleOne.js

After each level is completed (with the player's answer being correct or not), before going back to the level map, the function postScore(), is called. It joins all the player's progress information into a string (as can be seen below), that is sent as a parameter to sendToDatabase(), from js/globals/globals_functions.js, that sends it to the database.

const data = '&line_game=' + // collect game shape
+ '&line_mode=' + // collect game mode type
+ '&line_oper=' + // collect game math operation type
+ '&line_leve=' + // collect the selected difficulty for the game
+ '&line_posi=' + // collect the players position on the map
+ '&line_resu=' + // collect status for players answer (correct or incorrect)
+ '&line_time=' + // collect time spent finishing the game
+ '&line_deta=' + // collect extra details specific to current game