On Thursday, March 14, 2002, at 03:06 PM, Gav wrote:
> What I do want to do though is create a gallery feature so what I > believe I > need to do is to append the info above into a textfile named total.txt > or > something. So that everytime a separate file is saved on to the server, > it's info is added to this total file. Is this the way to go about > it? Or > is there a php function that can see what files are in the directory, > open > them and then use the info that way? > > I was told that a database is the way to go but I have no experience of > these at all. A database will help you to keep data in separate "entities" (by keeping X information in an X_info column, Y information in a Y_info column, for example). A database is also very fast. Database knowledge is also worth having on your resume. I recommend you download MySQL, an easy-to-use and free relational-database-management-system. No doubt you've seen a lot of references to it from PHP stuff, because the two are practically hand-in-hand partners. If you can afford a book, get "MySQL" by Paul DuBois from New Riders books, and read the first chapter to get a feel for how the SQL language works (so you can write SQL statements into your PHP code). Later when you have more time, finish the book, it's an excellent reference for the MySQL database system. If you don't want to spring for the book but are still interested, there are a million tutorials on using MySQL. But a whole database just for this one script seems to me to be some serious overkill. I recommend that you keep your data in an XML file instead -- this is actually really really easy, probably easier than using MySQL, but not as fast or as powerful for doing queries or searches. But you can mark up the data to keep entities separate, and append new Flash objects' data to a "master" XML document like you describe. When someone wants to view the "gallery", just parse the XML file, or run it through an XSLT style sheet or something. If you need to add to the gallery, just read the XML file into memory, insert the new XML code for whatever it is you need to add, and write it back to the file. The PHP XML functions are at http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.xml.php and there are tutorials at DevShed, SitePoint, and a dozen other excellent web support sites. Either a database or XML can do what you want, it's really up to you. I think the XML way will get you your results soonest, but learning MySQL will have a long-term value if you ever intend to do any back-end work or just want to know more about databases. It's fun stuff. Erik PS: you can combine XML and MySQL to achieve some really powerful data storage tricks, though sometimes it's overkill to do so (depending on the extent of your project). ---- Erik Price Web Developer Temp Media Lab, H.H. Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
