Plotting custom data for members on graph

Goof day,

I am quite new to the forums here – and also to using S2Member Pro. What I would like to do is the following:
I want to facilitate a sequence of data for each of my users, e.g. monthly electricity usage, and plot this on a graph on his/her own profile page.

I am guessing the key components to this would be a MySQL database for each of the users where the data is inserted and a pretty decent plotting library that can extract this data from the database and plot it on a graph?

How would I go about doing this with S2Member?

Kind Regards,
Danie

Hi Danie,

I’m not sure how you’re expecting to use s2Member here. The s2Member plugin is designed to restrict access to WordPress Posts and Pages. If you have a MySQL database for each user and you want to display graphs using data in that database, all of that would take place outside the s2Member plugin.

Good day,

Thank you for your reply. I understand what you mean, and as I said, I am quite new to using S2Memeber. Perhaps I should phrase my query differently:

If I have a number of external databases for each of my registered user, then how can I extract this information from them? When a user logs in, then he/she is directed to a custom profile type page. On that page, there is then some PHP code that connects to the correct database, based on the user-information. The data in this database can then be extracted and displayed. Will S2Member be able to provide the required functionality/info for me to select the correct external database for the user?

Kind Regards,
Danie

maybe this can be of help http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_user_meta and http://codex.wordpress.org/WPMU_Functions/get_current_user_id

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by  boudewijn lutgerink. Reason: added get_current_user_id

Thank you boudewijn!

I am starting to get the picture here – I hope :). Basically, the S2Member framework sits on top of the standard WordPress memebership structure. When a user is logged in, I can use standard WordPress functions, such as get_user_meta() to extract a unique ID for that user. This ID can then be used to connect to a different/external MySQL database where other data for the user is stored, e.g. monthly water-readings. When the data is extracted, plotting it on a graph is easy.

Does this all sound to be on the correct track?

spot on… ;-)

Thank you,

Perhaps it can be an option to store this information for each user directly in the standard WP-database – or, from a security/maintainability point of view, it might be better to use a separate database for this info.

I am not sure that this is the correct forum for this discussion?

Entering the subject of database design hey?
OK then. There is no need for a different database, you need another table.
FYI, a database is a big container where tables reside and all the meta info like relation between tables, indexes etc. In MySQL (AFAIK) tables can not stand on themselves.

I assume here that the type of info you want to store for each user is basically the same.
What I would do is create a table with as primary index the user ID from the user meta table that WP creates.
Once you have the user ID from the get_current_user_ID function you can then query your table for a record for that user and read the info you need.
I am not really familiar (yet) how to do that in PHP, but I have no doubt that this info can be found in a PHP manual.

Thank you boudewijn!

I will have a look at this and post some of the results here when I have them!