lcd panel script space engineers factory

The various LCD Panel blocks are a great way to add a human touch to a ship or base by displaying useful images or text. For LCD configuration and usage, see LCD Surface Options.

Note: Some functional blocks, such as Cockpits, Programmable Blocks, Custom Turret Controllers, and Button Panels, have customizable LCD surfaces built in that work the same way as LCD Panel blocks, which are also discussed in detail under LCD Surface Options.

LCD Panels need to be built on a powered grid to work. Without power, they display an "Offline" text. While powered without having a text, image, or script set up, they display "Online".

LCD Panel blocks come in a variety of sizes from tiny to huge (see list below) and are available for large and small grid sizes. Note that LCD Panel blocks all have connections on their backs, and very few also on a second side.

All LCD Panels and LCD surfaces work with the same principle: They are capable of displaying dynamic scripts, or few inbuilt static images accompanied by editable text. Access the ship"s Control Panel Screen to configure LCD Panels or LCD surfaces; or face the LCD Panel block and press "K".

A Text Panel, despite its name, can also display images. On large grid, it is rectangular and does not fully cover the side of a 1x1x1 block. On small grid it is 1x1x1, the smallest possible LCD block in game.

On large grid, you choose the Text Panel when you need something that has rectangular dimensions that make it look like a wall-mounted TV or computer screen. If you want to display images, this one works best with the built-in posters whose names end in "H" or "V" (for horizontal or vertical rotation). On Small grid, you place these tiny display surfaces so you can see them well while seated in a cockpit or control seat, to create a custom display array of flight and status information around you.

Corner LCDs are much smaller display panels that typically hold a few lines of text. They don"t cover the block you place them on and are best suited as signage for doors, passages, or containers. They are less suitable for displaying images, even though it"s possible. If you enable the "Keep aspect ratio" option, the image will take up less than a third of the available space.

These huge Sci-Fi LCD Panels come in sizes of 5x5, 5x3, and 3x3 blocks, and can be built on large grids only. These panels are only available to build if you purchase the "Sparks of the Future" pack DLC.

They work the same as all other LCD Panels, the only difference is that they are very large. In the scenario that comes with the free "Sparks of the Future" update, they are used prominently as advertisement boards on an asteroid station.

This LCD panel can be built on large and small grids. The transparent LCD is basically a 1x1x1 framed window that displays images and text. It is part of the paid "Decorative Blocks Pack #2" DLC.

What is special about them is that if you set the background color to black, this panel becomes a transparent window with a built-in display. In contrast to other LCD Panels it has no solid backside, which makes it ideal to construct transparent cockpit HUDs, or simply as cosmetic decoration.

While configuring an LCD Panel, the GUI covers up the display in-world and you can"t see how the text or images comes out. In the UI Options, you can lower the UI Background opacity to be translucent, so you can watch what you are doing more easily.

Unfortunately there is not enough space in description of the steam workshop page to fit full guide. Well.. there was, but thanks to your suggestions I added more commands and more cool stuff and it doesn"t fit there anymore. So I made this ultimate guide to answer all your questions! ;-)

This guide will give you full insight into how to use all the features of Automatic LCDs 2. You will find out what are the commands, what are the arguments of the commands and how to use them. It also contains full list of all commands with detailed description along with examples of use.

What is block?Block is every machine, button, cockpit, everything on your ship that is accessible through control panel. Armors are not blocks. Script only works with blocks.

Note: When you subscribe to this you will not see it in the list of mods in game, because it is not a mod. It is in-game script that works in vanilla game without any mods. So don"t worry if you don"t see it in list of mods - if you subscribed to it just follow this guide.

Programmable blocks and in-game scripts are now in "Experimental mode" in game that you need to turn on in game options. Also don"t forget to enable in-game scripts in advanced world settings.

I highly recommend touching the programmable block now and then to update the script if there were any new features added or bugs fixed. Look at "How to update" section to learn how to update scripts in your programmable blocks.

Script cannot update itself inside your programmable blocks. You need to load new version of script to your programmable block to overwrite the old one. You can do that in exactly the same way as when you first loaded the script into programmable block.

Open your programmable block, click Edit, click Browse Workshop, select Automatic LCDs 2, click OK, Check code, Click Ok. Done. Your script is now updated.

Note: If you are experiencing errors on translated version of script please write to the script page of author of that translation. I can"t update translations.

Your commands are too long to fit on single line?You can use a \ to tell the script to continue the command on the next line, just make sure there is nothing after the \ not even a space.

As you know almost every command has first argument used for name filtering which can be used to filter blocks by block name or block group name. This name filter now supports more than that. You can use it to tell the script to only look for blocks which are part of the same grid as the one where the programmable block is.

This is very useful if you connect ships to your station or ship and you don"t want to see blocks of the connected ships on station LCDs. You can also use this script on multiple ships that connect together without worries that they will conflict once connected.

Script now only updates LCDs which are part of the same grid as programmable block. If you would like to change this please take look at What is LCD_TAG? section to learn how to change LCD_TAG.

LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors are not updating?By default the script only updates LCDs that are part of the same grid as programmable block.

LCD_TAG is used to tell the script which LCDs are managed by the script. As all of you know the script looks for LCDs that have [LCD] in their name by default.

You can however change this to whatever you like. You can tell the script to manage LCDs in certain group or even tell it to manage all LCDs regardless of name.

How to change the LCD_TAG?You can change the LCD_TAG by editing the Custom Data of programmable block that runs the script. Let"s explain it by example:

How to tell the script to manage all LCDs regardless of name?LCD_TAG follows the same name filtering rules as commands. So you can set the Custom Data to:

You also can"t change the LCD_TAG during run. You need to recompile the script every time you change the LCD_TAG otherwise the script will still look for old tag.

It is now possible to join multiple LCDs together so they will look and work like single panel. Because of the limitations of text alignment it is only possible to join LCDs up and down. Not left to right. So the widest LCD you can have is Wide LCD. But you can have many of them under each other to form single big one.

NUMBER is position of LCD in array of LCDs. It doesn"t matter what number you choose. They just need to go one after another. So the topmost LCD will have the lowest number. For example 1. LCD under it will have 2, etc.

You can use this script on cockpit screens as well as screens of other blocks. In order to do that you have to mark the cockpit (or other block) with the LCD_TAG as you did with LCDs. So by default you add [LCD] to the name of the cockpit in order for the cockpit to be recognized by the script.

As soon as you do that the first screen on the cockpit will be controlled by the Automatic LCDs 2 and should display the usual message that you should write commands to custom data of the panel. If you need only this screen, you can write commands to Custom Data of the cockpit just as you do with LCDs.

In order to use other screens you have to tell the script which screen you want to write to. Here is example of how the Custom Data of cockpit can look like:

Where is the index of the screen you want to write to. 0 is the first screen, 1 is the second screen, etc. The "AutoLCD" part just needs to be there.

Easy way to know the index of the screen is when you look at the control panel of the cockpit, find the list of the LCD panels and pick one. For example "Keyboard" screen is 4th in the list of the LCD panels which means its index is 3 (because first one is 0). So if you would want to write only to the Keyboard screen your custom data would look like this:

You can use this on any block that has LCD panel screens. Script will not touch screens that you haven"t specified so you can use this with other scripts too. Read "Compatibility with other scripts" if you want to know how Automatic LCDs can share Custom Data with other scripts.

If you want to dock or merge a ship that is using this script with another ship or station that is also using this script you can run into some problems which can be easily prevented if you know how.

Script now only updates LCDs which are part of the same gridThis means that LCDs which are connected using connectors, pistons or rotors will not be updated to prevent conflicts between docked ships. This does not apply when ships are connected using merge block because in that case they behave like single ship in game.

LCDs are updating much slower when more ships are docked using merge blockIf there are more ships using this script docked together using merge block then the programmable blocks will not split the work efficently automatically.

I recommend using different LCD_TAG for each ship and station. Look at Tips and Tricks section of this guide to learn how to do that. This will ensure that programmable blocks always update only LCDs on the ship/station they are intended for.

LCDs are showing items, power, cargo, etc of all docked shipsThis will happen if you use no arguments to commands or if you use * or if you use same names for groups / blocks on both ships. Make sure you read Same ship blocks filtering section to learn how to filter only blocks of the same ship.

Displays inventory summary for certain item types. It automatically adds 0 items lines for vanilla game items. Script will automatically display even modded items if they are in the inventories, but it will not report missing modded items.

Automatically separates reactors, engines, solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. Works with modded blocks. It shows maximum achievable power output for solar panels. That means that if there is no sun shining on solar panels then the maximum is 0 W.

Second argument: override titles (Reactors, Solar, Batteries) with your custom text (read Custom Titles in Power command description to understand how it works)

NOTE: in-game scripts have very limitted access to things which are needed to estimate power time. I"ve done everything I could think of to estimate the time with as much precision as possible, but it is not perfect. It is just an estimation. On the other side, during my testing I found it to be more precise than the Fuel Time displayed on game HUD in some situations.

Note: This is just estimated time by script. It will probably not be exactly correct and it is possible that it will jump up and down, because of how in-game scripting works and because of the fact that the game doesn"t expose such information without dirty hacks and the script has to calculate it itself.

Displays damaged and partially built ship/station blocks. Script only has access to blocks which are visible in control panel so no armor blocks, conveyor tubes, etc are considered.

They are case sensitive! Make sure you enter them exactly without any spaces before or after them. e.g. use {AutoDeploy} not {Auto Deploy} nor { AutoDeploy } nor {autodeploy}.

There are a lot of properties for many different blocks and listing them all here along with what they do would take a lot of space so I"m leaving that up to you to try.

Due to game limitations some blocks do NOT automatically update the details text until you look at them in control panel. This is VERY important as you always need to look at the block in control panel if you want the LCD to show updated text. This does not apply to all blocks!

Note: If you would like to display only leaking air vents you can use Working command and filter only LCDs that show LEAK using filtering described in Working command.

This is very useful when using different mods / scripts that write something to Custom Data of block and you would like to append it to your Automatic LCDs displays.

This is very useful when using different mods / scripts that type something on LCD and you would like to append it to your Automatic LCDs displays. This way you can have one LCD hidden that will be used by your mod / script and use TextLCD command to read that text and write it to one of the Automatic LCDs. Example: TextLCD {Other LCD} will append contents of first LCD named Other LCD.

So first is hours in 24-hour format then : then minutes with a leading zero then space then day of month then . then month number then . and then full year

You can also add this to button panel and setup action on button to Run the programmable block with argument. It needs to be the same programmable block that runs the script that shows the text on the screen on that particular LCD.

If you use custom font scroll down to the bottom of script, then scroll a bit up until you find AddCharsSize lines. Monospace font name and size definition is above those.

LCD clear functionWhen you Run the programmable block with argument "clear" (without quotes) it will clear all LCDs. You can use this to turn off your LCDs without having to actually turn them off where they would say "OFFLINE".

LCDs boot screensUnfortunately there is no easy way to find out that you turned off/on your ship so the script doesn"t automatically display boot screens after turn the power sources off and on. You can however use the LCD clear function to reset the LCDs when you turn on your ship/station. There is also special "boot" argument to start the boot sequence whenever you need it. Just Run the programmable block with "boot" (without quotes) as argument.

If you are a bit more advanced, you can customize the boot screens:To customize the boot texts (except for progress bar part) open the script in programmable block and scroll down a bit, where you will find this:

Automatic LCDs 2 is not a mod so you don"t need to do anything in dedicated server setup to use it except for having enabled in-game scripts in your world.

It is now possible to easily translate the script to your own language. You need to only translate item names and messages at the bottom of the script.

That"s it. Once we agree and you have your translation ready I will properly credit you and add link to the translated script to this guide as well as main script page.

How to keep your translation up-to-date with the main script?This is why I"ve separated the messages from the main code so you don"t need to walk through code to find what needs to be translated. When I update the main script you can just copy-paste the item lines and message lines from your old translated version to new script and just translate any new items/messages that were added in the update.

Note: If you are experiencing errors on translated version of script please write to the script page of author of that translation. I can"t update translations.

How to use LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors?By default the script only updates LCDs that are part of the same grid as programmable block. First, I do recommend reading about "Same grid filtering" in separate section of this guide.

Add line "SCROLL_LINES = 2" (without quotes) to the Custom Data of the programmable block to make the script scroll 2 lines in one step instead of default 1.

How to stop the script from changing Content Type of the panels?You can add line "SKIP_CONTENT_TYPE = true" (without quotes) to Custom Data of the programmable block to disable automatic panel content type change.

Do you want to change some text that the script says?You need script to not show "Total Output" but only "Total"? Or is there anything else that doesn"t fit your needs? You can change anything the script says at the bottom of the script. Look at "How to Translate?" section to learn how to make the script say what you need.

Keen has added MyIni format that scripters can use to parse Custom Data. This was added explicitly to make life easier for scripters when they need to use Custom Data and share it with other scripts. This was written by Malware (the creator of MDK framework for Space Engineers in-game scripting and father of Programmable Block) and I"ve been discussing with him how to make it compatible with Automatic LCDs without people having to learn new syntax so he came up with great solution.

If people also want to write Automatic LCDs commands to the same block where the Custom Data is already used by script that uses MyIni format then they can simply add 3 dashes on its own line and continue with Automatic LCDs commands like this:

Anything under the --- is ignored by the MyIni parser that other scripts use. Anything before the --- is completely ignored by the Automatic LCDs so this way Automatic LCDs can share Custom Data with other scripts and coexist peacefully :)

NOTE: Some scripts overwrite the Custom Data and if you already have some Automatic LCDs commands there they will remove them. If those scripts support the MyIni format then you can write your commands like this to make them not remove the commands (or set them up first and then use the format like explained above):

This script doesn"t work like other scripts on the workshop. Script updates dynamically as it needs and time between updates of most of the commands is several seconds depending on complexity of the command. There is not a single update time you can modify because the script doesn"t work that way. The script automatically limits itself and spreads the calculations over time to have minimal impact on the game performance. That"s why the more commands you use the longer it will take to update all of them. Unfortunately even if I figured out some way to let you configure update rates, I just can"t leave the update rates configurable for people, because the script would have very bad impact on game with high refresh rates and many people would not realize that - trust me, we"ve been there.

You can have 100 scripts running on your server with 1.0 sim speed. If you would like to see the performance test it starts at 1:56 of the showcase video which is the first one in the screenshots on the main script page or here:

I will always try to make sure that the script performs as well as possible while giving you good enough refresh rates. Unfortunately it can"t be completely real time, because the impact would be just too huge.

Programmable Block Edit button is greyed out. What should I do?You need to enable in-game scripts in Advanced World settings. You can find them on Load screen, when you select your save and click Edit Settings button, then Advanced button and scroll down you will find lots of check boxes, one of them says In-game scripts - make sure it is enabled.

READ THIS: Programmable blocks and in-game scripts are now in "Experimental mode" in game that you need to turn on in game options. Also don"t forget to enable in-game scripts in advanced world settings.

*** Check your ownership ***Always make sure that the programmable block and LCDs have the same ownership as the blocks you want to show on the LCDs. I highly recommend you own all the blocks unless you know how ownership works. Just open the control panel, select one of the blocks on your ship, press CTRL+A and change the ownership on the right side to "Me".

Script limiter is unreliable and dependent on things outside of the game (like other processes eating the CPU etc). Admins use it because its the only way to stop scripts from slowing down the server unfortunately in the process it kills even innocent scripts when the server is overloaded.

I can"t stop it. Its techinically impossible because of how the script limiter works. The script is independent on number of screens or number of commands .. it always uses the same number of instructions and instead slows down the updates of the screens.

Technical details: Script limiter counts real time it took script to execute. Because of how computers and operating systems work the real time it takes to execute some code is dependent on other things running on the computer. So if one thing is using a lot of CPU then other things will take longer to complete. This is why even scripts that do almost nothing can take a lot of time to complete if the computer is overloaded by for example doing backups, scanning for viruses, calculating the answer to ultimate question, etc. Because the scripts get less CPU time it takes much longer to complete even simple tasks. This is why its almost impossible to make the script survive script limiter actions if the server is overloaded from doing other stuff many times even outside of the SE game itself.

1. If your LCDs are on separate grid (behind rotor, piston, connector) they will not be updated. Read LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors are not updating? section of Troubleshooting section of the guide.

4. Make sure you carefully read the command description in this guide and that you understand what it is saying. If you don"t understand what it is saying please let me know and I will modify it to be more clear.

Programmable block reports "Exception".If programmable block control panel shows "Exception" please report it in he "BUG REPORTS" discussion on main script page.

LCDs that are connected using rotors, pistons or connectors are not updating?By default the script only updates LCDs that are part of the same grid as programmable block. First, I do recommend reading about "Same grid filtering" in separate section of this guide.

If some of your LCDs are sometimes offline:it"s probably a game bug and it"s happening to more people. Someone said that loading game, returning to main menu and loading again helps.

Does your LCD just say ONLINE instead of showing things?Make sure that you named your LCD so it contains [LCD] . If you did, you are most probably using german client which has problems with [] characters that you type in game. You can use copy-paste to overcome it or simply use alternate built-in tag I made for you !LCD!

It"s just blank screen?Your command is wrong or there is simply nothing to show. Check your command syntax in full guide, try examples. Make sure that there is nothing in front of the command in LCD Public Title (game sometimes likes to hide the "Public title" text). Always press Home before entering command to make sure there is no text at the beginning of LCD Public Title that you don"t want to have there.

Programmable block reports "Index out of bounds".Make sure that you updated the script to latest version with all the fixes. Check that script has permissions to write to LCDs!

I need to see what assembler/refinery is producing like on your screenshotIt is not possible to find out what assembler or refinery is doing from the script. What you see on screenshot are names of assemblers and refineries. I use scripts Crafting Component Quotas and Selective Refining. Crafting Components Quotas can rename your assemblers like you see on screenshot.

The LCD Panel is a thin panel that takes an entire block face and can display a variety of messages and textures that can be displayed constantly or triggered by the Programmable Block, Sensor, Timer Block, or any other block capable of triggering.

The "Color" sliders allow setting the text colour using RGB slider and "Backgr." allows setting background fill colours (default black). If using a transparent LCD then the text will be against transparency unless fill colour is added.

"Loaded Textures" has a list of the available default and modded (where applicable) images available for display on the screen. Select the desired image and select "Add to selection". The selected image will then show in the second "Selected textures" panel.

When multiple images are applied they can be set to cycle between with the duration between images being set by the "Image change interval" slider. To remove an image from display select it in the second panel and select "Remove selected".

The "Preserve aspect ratio" checkbox can be used to prevent the image being stretched if it does not fit the screen properly such as when using a wide LCD.

To set the LCD to display a script, choose "Script" from the dropdown. Choosing Script allows the display of information such as weather, artificial horizon for vehicles, Energy and Hydrogen level etc.

The panel"s title and text can be made public, private, or a combination of both. Textures applied can be selected from a list or custom textures can be selected. Textures can be set to rotate on a timer, changing from one to the next. GPS coordinates shown in the GPS format in the text panel will appear in the GPS and can be activated (=shown on HUD).

The LCD Panel could be accessed with the programmable block as IMyTextPanel. It could work in ´Texture Mode´ in which the selected textures are shown or the ´Text Mode´ in which the text is shown. The following methods are available:

Browsers only prompt this dialogue for the certificate of the main URL, not for the resources loaded in the page, such as images, CSS or JavaScript files hosted on a secured external CDN.

There are also occasions where templates that would appear in the middle of the layout should not be visible for one reason or another. I would want to shift the items below the invisible item up so that any blank space would be eliminated.

To solve this problem, I needed to create the dataset dynamically with a python script, then bind the resulting dataset to the Template Parameter property of the template repeater. This is a step by step tutorial on how I solved this problem.

3. We are going to add a custom method to the template repeater component you placed on your display. Ensure the component is selected and click the “Scripting…” item in the toolbar.

3) List the parameters required by your custom method separated by commas. In this example only one parameter is needed; “path”. The custom method automatically passes the component that contains the script and can be referenced using the keyword “self”. If your template requires more than one parameter, you would list them as “arg1, arg2, arg3” and so on.

4) Write your script. I wanted to create a variable number of items in the repeater depending on how many steps there were in the sequence. Fortunately, the sequencer I am using has a tag that indicates how many steps exist. I bound that tag to the template repeaters Repeat Count property, so I could use it in my script. Here is a run-down on how this script works:

-Execute a for loop to iterate through the number steps in the sequencer. I accomplish this by using the Repeat Count property of the template repeater which I bound to a tag with the maximum step index. The Repeat Count parameter is referenced using the “self” keyword. The Ignition user manual lists all the parameters that can be used in these kinds of scripts.

6. Bind the custom method to the “Template Parameters” property using the runScript function. The syntax is: runScript(self.nameOfScript, polling rate, parameters)

self.nameOfScript: The custom method and the “Template Parameters” both belong to the instance in the display so the method can be referenced using the “self” keyword.

Hallam-ICS is an engineering and automation company that designs MEP systems for facilities and plants, engineers control and automation solutions, and ensures safety and regulatory compliance through arc flash studies, commissioning, and validation. Our offices are located in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and North Carolina and our projects take us world-wide.

Halts the installation of a package and forces the installation status in the SOTI MobiControl console to report "Failed" when used in a SOTI MobiControl pre-install script.

Retrieves the current agent mode (user or administrator) of a device with lockdown mode applied and displays it in the Logs section of the Device Information panel.

Finishes the current script without processing the rest of the package and reports package installation as successful to the deployment server. This is useful particularly in packages that involve wiping a device. This script command can be used to skip reinstalling the package but still report back as successfully installed to the deployment server.

If a hard reset is initiated from a package"s post-install script, the entire package will reinstall after the reset. A check can be included in the pre-install script that determines whether the package"s files have already been installed.

Sends a customs message to the SOTI MobiControl deployment server from the device. This message appears in the Logs tab of the Device Information panel in the SOTI MobiControl console.

As of Android agent v14.3.1, the agent waits until it"s idle before it restarts (generally less than 10 seconds). Add --immediately if you want to restart the agent as soon as the script is received. Earlier versions of the agent restart immediately.

The return values for the showmessagebox are stored in a global variable, ShowMessageBoxReturn This variable can be used in scripts as %ShowMessageBoxReturn% to execute actions based on user response. Possible return values are IDYES, IDNO, IDOK, IDCANCEL. The value for this global variable does not change if the type is not 2 or 4.

Starts a program on the device. When the /wait option is specified, the script processor waits for the initiated program to terminate before executing the next command in the script.

The good thing, you don"t need to download PDO, it"s already a part of PHP. In case it is not available, you need to tick some checkbox in your server panel, or uncomment PDO in php.ini if you installed PHP manually

I have spent a significant amount of time on your "PHP error reporting" document and while I understand the set_exception_handler function, I do not know where to place this function so that it applies to each and every database call. Should this function also be in the database connection script? Thank you!

The point is, the uniform error handing function is intended for all PHP errors, database errors included. There are many other errors such syntax errors, file not found errors etc. All will be caught by the wrapper. Hence it is rather not logical to put it in the DB connection file. Usually a PHP application is using sort of a bootstrap file which included in the every other script. That"s the ideal place for the error handler.

I�d like to know if you can post a sample PHP Script that explains how to use the LIKE With PDO to search in a database for keywords. The example I�ve seen on your site explains a lot but doesn�t explain how to retrieve the $data for viewing.

How can I create two forms on one page that submits form data in two different scripts; Let"s say a login page and a registration page that submits data on two different scripts, one for login and another for registration

Can i make script that allows both database structures and if database type would be needed to change all i had to do would be change connection string?

In any other case this option will do you much more harm than good. Especially with transactions, as such an option will result in transactions extended between different scripts execution with unpredictable results.

PDO::lastInsertId IS GUARANTEED to return correct ID of last inserted row in the script, even on concurrent environments, but it CAN BE harmfully dangerous and unsafe with seeded IDs (e.g. mysql"s auto-increment or most pseudo randoms like rand() function) on concurrent environments IF you use it to calculate next row"s ID. One should never calculate next row"s ID based on previous row"s ID in a concurrent environment. If you need next ID, just insert a new row in the table, and use PDO::lastInsertID to get that ID. That is because with seeded row IDs on concurrent environments like the web, collision IDs WILL happen and you end up in tears.

It"s hard to tell with one will suit you best, but at least you should make sure that there is only one connection opened and used for all database interactions during a single script runtime. Feel free to reach back if something is still unclear.

Besides, "the last" is too clumsy a description, you must know the exact key for the row you need to update. Other wise a race condition may ruin your operation

In you current form the query is not executed but rather produces an error, due to that $data veriable i the query and also a space between a colon and a placeholder name (it should be :bic, not :bic).

I"ll go update my code to use the backticks, just in case. And yeah, sorry, "user input" wasn"t a very descriptive term to use, but I can say that yes, everything is hardcoded. I definitely would not be using any reserved words in table names, but I like the idea of just following good standards, and doing that early on enough in development (which is the case here) and sticking to them throughout any coding I do. So, off I go to fix it all up!

However, from the correct SQL syntax point of view there could be a problem. Your table name could be an SQL reserved word or an incorrect syntax (contain a space or a hyphen for example) so it"s much better to enclose it in backticks, just in case. So the only difference I would make is

It does not affect your code if you don"t use namespaces but prevents an error/confusion if you do. Basically all PHP built-in classes are in the root namespace, so just a single backslash means - the root namespace.

Please note that unless you are using websockets, there won"t be a constant connection to a database. By default, PHP processes are atomic, a request initiated from a browser makes a php script run, return the requested data, and die. So it connects to a database every time. A very good and simple model.

The connection has to be made only once! No connects in every function. No connects in every class constructor. Otherwise, multiple connections will be created, which will eventually kill your database server. Thus, a sole PDO instance has to be created and then used through whole script execution

I have an online store i have built and i am afraid that a customer may be left on a blank page or an abruptly ended script without reason during the checkout process, or post checkout process receiving their order confirmation. I"ve encountered such an error myself on another website from having an intermittent internet connection and being left without any notification it leaves fear of having paid for something without the order having being processed properly on their end.

My use of the try... catch operator would also be that if there was an error on a product page I would have liked it to just keep the script running and display the "Sorry we could not find your product" situation, as a kind of diversion until i can fix what is wrong.

document.getElementById("d1").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;<script> this returns 3 data items. All this works. My issue is how can I put these 3 data items into

I would like to catch an error to notify the use "Something went wrong" and to return a false boolean flag to handle the rest of the script outside of the try... catch. How would you recommend the best way i can achieve this?

If you want to continue the script execution even in case of error, it"s a fair use of the try..catch operator. But still, I cannot imagine the practical case. Could you please comment back with a little more detailed description of the scenario you have in mind?

In general, you just create a separate file where PDO instance is created, like $pdo = new PDO .... And then just include/require that file into every script that needs a PDO connection.

By using this function you will ask a database to send into your PHP script all the rows found. It is highly inefficient and even may lead your server to failure.

i take it that, short of using buffered queries (or script exit), using PDO::query("SELECT something") will get you into a position where you can"t recover, since there"s no PDOStatement on which to do a fetch/fetchAll(). or did i miss something? i assume the situation clears on script exit and/or connection loss.