I hope this isn't too long-winded. It's kind of hard
to explain.
I'm trying to figure out a scheme that will display
animal distribution information. First, I want to
divide animal species by continents. Next, I want to
further identify species that live on islands that are
associated with continents, like Japan (Continent =
Eurasia, Island = Japan).
Now, imagine four species with the following
distribution:
Eurasian bird - Mainland Eurasia, plus the British
Isles and Japan
Eurasian bird2 - Mainland Eurasia only
Island Bird - British Isles and Japan only
Japanese bird - Japan only
I'm working on a content management system, so each
bird will have its own page. Tentatively, I'd like the
distribution for each bird to display like this:
EURASIAN BIRD
Eurasia*
*Including British Isles and Japan
EURASIAN BIRD2
Eurasia
ISLAND BIRD
Eurasia*
British Isles & Japan only
JAPANESE BIRD
Eurasia*
Japan
In other words, I always display a species' native
continent by default, followed by a more detailed
description if it also inhabits an island(s) or if it
lives on an island only. What's the best way to do
this?
I thought one way to do that might be to make two
columns, one for the broadest distribution (e.g.
Eurasia), the other for the specific distribution
(e.g. Japan). Then I could make a separate row for
each place a species inhabits, as follows:
SPECIES | DIST | DIST2
Eurasian Bird | Eurasia | Eurasia
Eurasian Bird | Eurasia | British Isles
Eurasian Bird | Eurasia | Japan
Eurasian Bird2 | Eurasia | Eurasia
Island Bird | Eurasia |British Isles
Island Bird | Eurasia | Japan
Japanese Bird | Eurasia | Japan
In the table above, every species listed would display
Eurasia, from colum DIST. Then I'd like to display
this additional information based on the data in the
last field, DIST2:
Eurasian bird: "*Including the British Isles & Japan"
Island Bird: "*British Isles and Japan only"
Japanese Bird: "*Japan only"
I should add that I already have geographic tables
that display parent-child relationships. However,
they're tricky to work with because of varying number
of steps between children and parents. For example,
Europe's parent is Eurasia, but the Philippines have
TWO parents - Asia, then Eurasia.
Anyway, before I try to figure out how to display this
with PHP I want to make sure I'm using a workable
scheme. Any tips? Thanks.
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