How to check if image is in database and if not display default image?

[ilya Kraft]

Hello,

I came across following problem. I have a table where I store user profile images, but I want to display default image if user has no image uploaded. what I do is I look into "profile_images" table where $owner_id=$user_id. I need to figure how to do something like this:

This is not a real code, just the logic

(Select all from "profile_images" where $owner_id=$user_is)
if user has uploaded an image (so table is not empty) set the image file as user profile picture
else if table is empty set image with id=0 as user image (so set default image as user profile image)
 

[Dormilich]

something like

SELECT COALESCE(`user_image`, 'default_image') FROM `image_table` WHERE …

?

[ilya Kraft]

Wow,

Hi thnx for reply. Em I really don't understand what you did there ))) Can you please explain what is "COALESCE"?
So far I understood that we take user_image and default_image from image_table where it is equal to user's id, but how would I check if user has uploaded an image? and if not show default image?
I'm interested in something like this something like

SELECT ('user_image')FROM 'image_table' WHERE image_id=$user_id
if file exists <<<< what do I write here?
$user_image=row[user_image];
else if file doesn't exist  <<<< what do I write here?
$user_image='<img src="http://bytes.com/images/deafult.jpg />"'
 

Thank You

[Dormilich]

what COALESCE() does. essentially another way of saying if `user_image` IS NULL use 'default_image'

[ilya Kraft]

ouuu I see,

so I actually don't need to do all of that complicated stuff instead I can use COALESCE. Alright this is cool ))), but does it mean that default image would be stored separately for each user? I mean say I have 200 users, does this mean that I would have 200 default images saved in database for each of them? And also how do I upload default image so it is automatically stored in 'default' field? for each user?

Thank You )

[Dormilich]

normally you would only have one default image, don’t you? no need to save it in the user’s data.

[ilya Kraft]

Sory for asking soo many questions, I'm still quiet new to this stuff ))) But how do I save it in users data? I have a table named "myMembers" where I save things like "id,username,e-mail etc." I know how to save those, but how do I set default_image so it is always same for all users? also how do I upload it to mySQL? I know how to upload images to databases from website, but have no idea on how to do it from phpMyAdmin.

[Dormilich]

that depends on how you store the image. if you just save the image path you can define it in the table declaration: user_image VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT 'path/to/default_image.png'. if you save the image data itself it may be more complicated.

[ilya Kraft]

ouuu ok I think I can continue it from here ))) thank you very much )))