Section 3 displays a preview of the latest blog post, including the date, thumbnail, and excerpt:

In order to render the latest blog entry, we first must query the database like so:

<?php
//Connect Database include("connect.php")
try{

    $db = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=john_doe_db;charset=utf8",
                  "john_doe_blog",
                  "password123457x");

} catch(PDOException $e){

    //if connections fails
    die("No Connection!");
}

//SQL statement to query the latest blog post from the POSTS TABLE
$sql="SELECT postID, postDate, postTitle, postBild, postBildAlt, postMedia, postTube, postBody
     FROM posts LIMIT 1";


//prepared statement. Optional in this case due to no wildcard and no $_GET
$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);
$abfrage=$db->prepare($sql);
$abfrage->execute();

//local german timezone. 
setlocale(LC_TIME, "de_DE.utf8");


//fetch
$row = $abfrage->fetch();
?>

Next we first convert from English to German time format (IT’s a german blog) and then calculate the average post rating with another SQL statement. we use an if statement in order to distinguish between two cases. case 1 the post hasn’t been rated yet. case 2 the post already has been rated.

<?php 
//Timestamp is saved as strin in the db therefor we neeed the strtotime() method
$strtotime = strtotime($row["postDate"]);
//German weekday
$strftimeA = strftime("%A", $strtotime);
//Day of the month
$strftimee = strftime("%e", $strtotime);
//Month no abbr.
$strftimeB = strftime("%B", $strtotime);
//Year
$strftimeY = strftime("%Y", $strtotime);
//Hours
$strftimeH = strftime("%H", $strtotime);
//Minutes
$strftimeM = strftime("%M", $strtotime);

//trim text and strip tags...
$dnotags = strip_tags($row["postBody"]);
$b200 = substr($dnotags, 0, 200);
$bstrr = strrpos($b200, " ");
$btrim = substr($b200, 0, $bstrr);

//Calculate average rating form the RATING TABLE using sql
$sql2="SELECT AVG(rateRating) AS durchschnitt
    FROM pratings 
    WHERE postFID = :id    
    ";
//We use the id from the POSTS TABLE 
$postID = $row["postID"];

$abfrage2=$db->prepare($sql2);
$abfrage2->bindParam(":id",$postID);
$abfrage2->execute();
$row2 = $abfrage2->fetch();

$avg = number_format($row2["durchschnitt"], 1, ",", ".");

//
if($row2["durchschnitt"] == null){

    $durchschnitt = "<p class='ml-2'>noch nicht bewertet";

} else {

    $durchschnitt = "<p class='ml-2'><span class='text-danger'> $avg</span>/5 Punkten <br>";
}
?>

Let’s now count how many time the post was rated

<?php

$sql3="SELECT COUNT(rateRating) AS anzahl
    FROM pratings 
    WHERE postFID = :id    
    ";

$abfrage3=$db->prepare($sql3);
$abfrage3->bindParam(":id",$postID);
$abfrage3->execute();

$row3 = $abfrage3->fetch();

$n =$row3["anzahl"];

if($n == null){

    $anzahl = "</p>";

}else {

    $anzahl = "Bewertet von <span class='text-danger'> $n </span> Besucher</p>";
}

?>

Finally let’s render our latest post and produce some HTML.

<!-- Render latest post-->
<div class="card bg-dark text-light mx-5 mt-1 mb-5">            
    <div class="card-body ppost">
        <div class="pimg mt-2 mx-2 rounded">
            <img class="rounded-top" src="bilder/<?php echo $row["postBild"];?>" alt="<?php echo $row["postBildAlt"]?>" style="max-width:100%;">
                <?php echo $durchschnitt?>
                <?php echo $anzahl?>
        </div>
        <div class="ml-2 ">
                <h4 class="mt-0 pt-0"><?php echo $row["postTitle"];?></h4>
                <span class="text-danger">gepostet am: <?php echo $strftimeA;?> den <?php echo $strftimee;?>. <?php echo $strftimeB;?> <?php echo $strftimeY;?> um <?php echo $strftimeH;?>:<?php echo $strftimeM;?> Uhr.</span>          
                <p class="text-justify"><?php echo $btrim ?>...<a href="blog.php?blogpost=<?php echo $row["postID"]?>"> Weiterlesen</a></p>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Done!