Searchable Database

[DrySnot]

Hello

I am trying to install a search function on my site. I know it will require a mysql database and I know how to set one up I just don't know how to interact with it.

My site is

http://www.tarantuladatabase.com/search.html

if you look at my search form I am trying to find a program that will let me submit all the information to a database then allow users to pull it up in a search.

Do any of you know of such a program or could you please give me some idea as to where I should start looking?

Thanks so much for the advice

http://www.arachnocharlotte.com

 

[BigRed1212]

I think you are asking a very big question, and no offense, but I don't think you know what is involved and what you are talking about. There isn't "a program" per se. You write the code. Don't worry- just like everybody else I didn't know what I was talking about and what was involved once either (probably still don't, actually).

My best advice is that you are more likely to get useful responses here or anywhere when you ask specific questions and demonstrate that you have done some work.

If you want to use MySQL you can, but you certainly don't need to. You could use Access for example. If you want to use MySQL you are probably looking at coding your pages in PHP. How's your PHP? I use Access and ASP and know nothing about PHP and MYSQL.

I would suggest you do some Internet searching.

Stuff like this maybe:

http://us2.php.net/function.mysql-connect

could point you in the direction you want to go, but others can probably point you to better resources.

HTH.

 

[lespaul]

additionally your search.html returns the following error:
[tt]
Not Found
The requested URL /search.html was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.39 Server at

http://www.tarantuladatabase.com

Port 80[/tt]

so it's hard to see what you are trying to do.


Leslie

Have you met Hardy Heron?

 

[BigRed1212]

I think I see it at

http://www.tarantuladatabase.com/assets/pages/search.html

 

[johnwm]

You probably need to move this question to the forum for the server side language that you use and your host supports.
forum333
forum434

It's also rather poor form to claim standards compliance on a page with 41 errors, even when they are mostly caused by simple misuse of quote marks without escaping them.

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[Olaf Doschke]

The original question is quite right here in this forum. And it's perfectly okay if discussion drifts to some specific products.

I wonder: as you don't seem to have a database right now, your database is the html pages of your site, right? Then you could make your site searchable by embedding a site search. This kind of search would be a fulltext search and work best with a simple single textbox for typing keywords or parts of them.

A database on the other side is by definition more or less searchable. You store data in it, not to keep it safe, but to make data uniformly, searchable and usable.

To make a site search, you could use live.com (

http://search.live.com/siteowner)

or google Adsense (

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8438)

Bye, Olaf.

 

[johnwm]

With due respect the original question was

I know it will require a mysql database and I know how to set one up I just don't know how to interact with it.

which is why the question is better in the appropriate server technology forum

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[Olaf Doschke]

Well, my interpretation of I know was "I believe", as the following sentences reveal, that DrySnot just made a guess here....

Bye, Olaf.

 

[johnwm]

Perhaps OP will come back and tell us whether he has got what he needs, or otherwise clarify his question.

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'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
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[DrySnot]

Sorry for taking so long to respond I was having some trouble logging in.

Please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong place, for the vague questions, for the broken link, and well the pages are valid you must have caught them right after an upload.

Thanks so much for helping me!

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.tarantuladatabase.com/assets/pages/test.html[/url]

This is kinda what I have been playing around with for php If this is working, I can see how it works a little.

I haven't been able to get connected to the database I did find out that to make a table I go into my cpanel then into phpmyadmin. I made a table with 1 field but I don't understand what format I need to use.

Will i have 1 table for each spider or will i have 1 table called Tarantula with fields called Housing and so on like this.

Table called Tarantula

>Housing
>>>>>>>>Arboreal
>>>>>>>>Terrestrial
>>>>>>>>Fossorial
>Location
>>>>>>>>New World
>>>>>>>>Old World
>Speed
>>>>>>>>Slow
>>>>>>>>Medium
>>>>>>>>Fast

Is this right at all?
I am confused about the things that I don't know like genes species and color.

http://www.tarantuladatabase.com,

http://www.tarantuladatabase.com/forum,

and

http://www.tarantuladatabase.com/search

 

[johnwm]

I fear this will be a long slog for you. We now know you are using PHP and MySQL - good start!

1. You need to tackle the basic database design first. To get an understanding of this, read (and understand)

http://r937.com/relational.html

- if you have problems with general database design, this is the appropriate forum.

2. Design your queries - this should be really straightforward for this very simple database. You can get help from

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/index.html

or (for specific MySQL questions) from forum436. Make sure that you use parametrised stored procedures to protect against SQL injection attacks (google for that if not clear, or do a forum search)

3. When you have a proper database design populated with a good sample of rows you need to go back to HTML to see how the Form element works. There is a simple example and explanation at

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp

and any specific questions on this element should be posted in forum215

4. The form that you use as the Action target for the HTML form will contain the PHP that processes the request, triggers the actual database search and displays the results. PHP from square one is a massive undertaking, but you should start at

http://www.w3schools.com/php/

which will get you started. When you have specific PHP questions try

http://www.php.net/

or forum434

5. Read BigRed1212's first reply - this is a big task. To see why these forums work, please spend a few moments reading

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Good luck - you're going to need it over the next few months! Bear in mind that these forums are for computer professionals, so we expect you to do the research and work first, before asking the questions.

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If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
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