Searching a database...how to set it up?

Baddass · 18 Mar 2006 at 10:37

not a regular poster in here sadly, and my programming skills are certainly limited. However, can anyone suggest a relatively easy way to do the following:

I want to add a TFT panel searching tool to my website, some feature where people can simply type in a model number or make or whatever, and it searchs a database and gives the results. Fairly simple i guess, but needs to be simple to set up and easy to maintain. I will need to update this a LOT, so perhaps something (dont know if this is possible) where is scans an excel data base?

that way i can update the sheet offline and just upload it to replace the old one whenever there are updates...

hope that makes sense, any good suggestions?

zetec452 · 18 Mar 2006 at 11:14

I think the easiest way is to setup a database driven website is with PHP and MySQL. There are tonnes of scripts availiable for it and obviously HG&P lot to help you through.

Some good starting points.

http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
www.mysql.com
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17548086&highlight=php+mysql

growse · 18 Mar 2006 at 11:16

I'd say your best bet would be a small instance of MySQL/MSSQL/any RDB with full-text indexing enabled. You'll have problems doing proper efficient searches of excel spreadsheets (unless you managed to get the beta of office server and want to use that). Full-text indexing will basically allow you to throw a word at a table and it'll return any result with that word in. It's rather nifty and worth looking at.

voodooflux · 18 Mar 2006 at 11:16

Perhaps a MySQL backend, with some private "admin" pages (only accessible to yourself) that would allow you to manage the contents of the database, either on a individual item basis, or some form of bulk upload (e.g. Excel as you mentioned).

cheers
v.f.

Baddass · 18 Mar 2006 at 12:14

excellent, thanks for the links and suggestions guys. I'll have a read through those pages linked, and voodoofllux, your idea is the kind of thing i'm looking at. Will investigate and get back to you guys if i get stuck

thanks again

Baddass · 18 Mar 2006 at 16:59

ok having a brief read through it looks reasonably complicated. Like i said, im no web devloper expert

any chance someone can put together some REALLY basic for me which looks obvious enough to change. what i need really is one HTML page with a search box on it, you put a TFT model in there, and hit search. then it scans a database of some sort and returns the results as to what panel that TFT uses. If that makes sense? Then for instance if someone put in a manufacturer name like "Samsung", it would return a list of all the Samsung models saying:

Samsung XXX has xxx panel
Samsung XXXX has xxxx panel

etc

any way someone can put together a very brief example database page, where it is obvious enough for me to edit in the sections i need? Just something to give me a head start, i can pick things up quite quickly from there (hopefully

)