I am working through Beginning PHP, Apache, MySQL Web Development. I am on chapter 3 'using php with mysql'.

I have typed up the code as in the book into note pad. The book says to save the file as 'createmovie.php' which i done. I then typed up the code as in the book to enter data into the tables just created. I saved this file as 'moviedata.php'.

It then says to run the createmovie.php file in the browser which i done. All i saw was the code i just type up. Is this right?

It then says to run the moviedata.php file. When i do this i don't get a success message instead i get "Duplicate entry '1' for key 1".
what does this mean?

I really don't know whether or not my database has been created. I have checked the code and it looks okay.

Can somebody please help this is driving me crazy

Please

Your question is also ambigous to me.
there are several option i can callup now for you

1. You must run php on server. First, copy your php file to a subfolder under webserver root. then type address of that file from your browser. To get right result your server must know how to handle php file. I think your webserver is not configured for executing php files. If you don't configure your webserver then you will get code that you wrote before as result. So first configure your webserver. I think how to configure webserver, you will get in the book details.
Or,
2. I think you have configured your webserver for php files as you get this message "Duplicate entry '1' for key 1". You get the whole code that you typed as result when you run 'createmovie.php' because you may not php code block with php tag <?php ....... ?>.
3. U have successfully executed php code and a database has been created and it has 1 table and at least one row of data. You are trying to insert duplicate data, that's why you get that message.

If these solution is not clear to you, you may chat with me. [email protected], [email protected]