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Database Design

Please support our PHP advertiser: PostgreSQL or MySQL? Compare and contrast the two most popular open source databases

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Join Date: Oct 2004

Posts: 7

Reputation: qazs is an unknown quantity at this point

Solved Threads: 0

qazs

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Newbie Poster

Database Design

Nov 20th, 2004

Hi,
I'm looking for some advice regarding creating a well-designed database site.
The scenario is this:
I have a main database that holds all my users' data,
I'll call it UserData.
Now I want to make a sort of Search By Category form, which will
output those users from UserData which meet the criteria.

Ive thought of 2 ways to do this:
1. Create a new table. Then connect to UserData,
grab the necessary info and dump them into the new table.
Then the user can manipulate this new table.
Connection to UserData is closed.

2. Connect to UserData everytime something is performed, like search or sort etc.

So which do you think is a better way? Thanks for any advice.

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Join Date: Feb 2003

Posts: 282

Reputation: Roberdin will become famous soon enough

Solved Threads: 6

Roberdin

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Supreme Evil Overlord

Re: Database Design

Nov 20th, 2004

The second way will be quicker and easier.

You can use SQL to connect to you DB and search and sort, for example:

 Help with Code Tags 
 PHP Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
SELECT *
FROM userData
WHERE user_age > 30
AND user_type = 'NORMAL'
ORDER BY username ASC
SELECT *
FROM userData
WHERE user_age > 30
AND user_type = 'NORMAL'
ORDER BY username ASC

The hereinbefore inserted query will, assuming that you have the table setup appropriately, select all fields from the UserData table - but only records where the user is over 30 and is of type 'NORMAL'. The records are sorted by username, ascending.

SQL (Structured Query Language) allows you do setup these queries easily and simply. PHP can then grab the results of the query and display it in a table, or any HTML that you like, really.

Roberdin

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