10 newbie - questions

[kkiely]

Hi, I started a page a year ago, homepokergames.com, where I had people enter info about home games. I didn’t know any HTML but I managed to get it so visitors could enter info through a form into a text file and call the file up using a PHP include statement.

Now I want to upgrade the site and have all the info stored in a SQL database. I have a few questions before I start Googling 40 hours a week to learn stuff:

1. From what I understand, you have to write a SQL script to change/delete data in a MySQL database (am I wrong?). Is there a program that has an Excel-like interface that lets you edit text directly? If so, what is the best program? Cheapest?
2. Can I have each record found in a database be put into a separate HTML table when my page outputs a search? I want to maintain the look of my site like I have it here

http://www.homepokergames.com/alabama.php

3. Is there is limit to the number of characters in a record?
4. Is there a limit to the # of records in a table?
5. Can I declare a record in a table as "hidden" so that it temporarily won't come up in searches?
6. If I have users visitors create a UserID and log in with a password and create info about themselves, can I go in to the database and edit THEIR info?
7. Is there a way to measure the # of SQL queries?
8. If you have 5,000 rows, is there a way to add another column to that data?
9. I am going to have a zip code radius search for games. I found some off-the-shelf commercial program that can do this. Is this something I could find on Google if I looked hard enough - because it just has to do with long&lat computations?
10. What are the other popular MySQL forums?

If anyone has any general advice about changing this page -

http://www.homepokergames.com/alabama.php

- into a SQL database I would appreciate it.

 

[Bastien]

1. phpmyadmin or mysqlcc

2. sure, just write the script that way

3. not really, depends on datatype of column uses

4. Filesystem size limits. Older filesystems ran about 2Gb for the file. Most new file systesm support anywhere from 8Gb and up. Look into db admin for more details

5. You could add a fields that acts as a flag and instruct the sql to not call this field if a value is set

select * from tableName where hidden_field = 0

6. Sure, if you are the admin for the db, then you can go in easily. You could also write a scripted page to do the same thing.

7. Sure you can code that in the page, from a single page perspective. Or you can turn on log files

8. Yes, both gui tools and straight sql calls can add a column. Changing column datatypes is more problematical as you MAY suffer data loos

9. See here

10. Google for this:

http://www.mysql.com

now has a forum

http://www.weberdev.com

http://www.phpbuilder.com

and many others. Most include a mysql forum in conjuction with other fora on other topics

hth

Bastien

Cat, the other other white meat

 

[kkiely]

very good answers, thank you