Discuss

This project is a platform where users can ask and answer questions about different technical and mechanical topics, like programming, electronics, robotics, and more. Users can sign up, choose a category, ask questions, and get help from others users can also delete their questions. The platform keep track of all questions and responses(answer), making it easy to share knowledge.

Features

• User authentication
• Question sorting by recent
• Category-wise sorting
• User-wise sorting
• My Question
• Delete Question
• Search Question (title/description)

Tech Stack

Client: HTML, Bootstrap, CSS, Vanilla JS

Server: PHP, PostgreSQL

Security Measures

• Input sanitization using htmlspecialchars To avoid XSS
• Password hashing using Bcrypt

Important SQL Queries

• To fetch questions sorted by the number of responses in descending order:

SELECT q.id, c.category_name, q.title, q.description, users.username AS user, q.created_at, COUNT(r.id) AS responses
FROM questions q
JOIN category c ON q.category_id = c.id
JOIN users ON q.user_id = users.id
LEFT JOIN responses r ON q.id = r.question_id
GROUP BY q.id
ORDER BY responses DESC;

Database Diagram

• The following diagram illustrates the relationships between the tables in the database:

Tables and Relationships

1. Users

   • Table Name: discuss.public.users
   • Description: Stores user information.

2. Questions

   • Table Name: discuss.public.questions
   • Description: Contains all the questions asked by users.
   • Relationships:
     • References Category (category_id)
     • References Users (user_id)

3. Responses

   • Table Name: discuss.public.responses
   • Description: Holds responses to the questions.
   • Relationships:
     • References Questions (question_id)
     • References Users (user_id)

4. Category

   • Table Name: discuss.public.category
   • Description: Contains the categories for questions.
   • Relationships:
     • Referenced by Questions (category_id)

Diagram Representation

erDiagram
    USERS {
        int id PK
        varchar username
        varchar email
        varchar password
        timestamp created_at
    }

    CATEGORY {
        int id PK
        varchar category_name
    }

    QUESTIONS {
        int id PK
        varchar title
        text description
        int category_id FK
        int user_id FK
        timestamp created_at
    }

    RESPONSES {
        int id PK
        text response
        int question_id FK
        int user_id FK
        timestamp created_at
    }

    USERS ||--o{ QUESTIONS : "asked"
    CATEGORY ||--o{ QUESTIONS : "contains"
    USERS ||--o{ RESPONSES : "responded"
    QUESTIONS ||--o{ RESPONSES : "has"

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Installation

• Clone the repository.
• Install the required PHP dependencies using Composer:

composer install

• Set up the database by running the provided SQL scripts.
• Configure the database connection by making a .env file and adding this details

DB_CONNECTION=postgresql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_DATABASE=discuss
DB_USERNAME=user
DB_PASSWORD=

• Set up a local development environment (Laragon recommended).
• Start the local server.