Displaying Column Total

[Atlantis]

Hey DD world!

Im trying to learn how to display the total (sum) of an int column. The real world scenario goes like this:

There is a table that is used to log 'username' and 'points'. Records are added manually along with a date stamp whenever they earn points based on the organization's rules. The structure may look like

recordID (prim)

userID (indx)

date (date/timestamp)

points (int)

I want to display on the homepage of the site that uses this to show some retrieved data. More specifically the User and Total Points.

Is there any PHP or script to display the Total Points based on 'userID' or User?

Or do I have to make a totally new kind of table to calculate and record sums?

I'm only interested on displaying total points, not neccisarily recording them.


Thanks for any help or direction I can get on this!!! Have a great day!

[Twey]

SELECT SUM(points) AS total_points FROM your_table WHERE user_id = '$user_id'