adding PHP and mysql functionality to an html page

[dragon]

Can you list some web sites that you have done that use that?

Also, I'm new to this so I need to learn the terminology.
What do you mean by "converting html sites into a template driven mysql sites"?

:cool:

[SnakEyez]

Well I am not too familiar with the sites but as far as that second item I can comment on.

Here is the trick. ASP - Active Server Pages, they use html to make the page and script is written inside the html document. PHP is not an html based format. This basically means that you cannot save an html document as a PHP since PHP is coded differently. It's one disadvantage to using PHP.

[dragon]

I thought you had knowledge on how to design HTML pages that also use PHP and MYSQL so I can pull info from a database and that info is updated automatically on the web page.

:)

[aval01]

Hey Dragon:
Here's the straight skinny on PHP & MySQL.

Best book to start with "Essential PHP" by Julie Meloni. A little pricey but gives you everything in simple english.

Website for Julie Meloni: http://www.thickbook.com This will show you just how nicely she writes on a beginners level.

Which is better PHP or Perl? Perl is more robust and does more things. It is a hard language to learn because you can literally do the same thing 12 different ways. This can be a real problem if you don't "comment" (add notes to) your code. You can come back and have absolutely no idea what you wrote or what someone else wrote. PHP is very easy to learn, and allows you to create instant interaction between your HTML page an a database. You could probably learn enough PHP in a week to do everything a basic website client would ever need.

Which is better ASP or PHP. Here's where I catch some grief. PHP is better because ASP has to be hosted on an NT server which are more expensive than Unix servers and they regularly go down unlike Unix servers. It is possible to use ASP on a Unix server if the server has a program called "Chilesoft" installed. But why bother, PHP is an easier language to learn, it's faster, and MS if it follows its past record will be dropping support for ASP as they come out with their new "ASP" which bears no resemblance to the former product.

Hope this helps

[dragon]

Thanks aval01 for you input!:)

[aval01]

Whoops forgot to mention anything about MySQL.

The two best freebie databases are MySQL and PostgreSQL. They, like all open source software, are not real easy to load up on your personal computer. I would recommend MySQL if you want fast dynamic data to be returned to your webpages. If you are going to be involved with any kind of transactions or information that you can't afford to lose, then I would suggest PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL has a rollback feature that MySQL currently doesn't support. This means that if cash passes over the internet and the transaction locks up for some reason or another Postgre will return everything to the way it was before the transaction and MySQL may not, leaving you with trying to figure out where the money goes.

At all costs avoid MS Access
http://www.15seconds.com/Issue/010514.htm