Operation Manual

503
USING DREAMWEAVER
Preparing to build dynamic sites
Last updated 3/28/2012
More Help topics
“Choosing an application server” on page 506
Web application terminology
This section defines frequently used terms relating to web applications.
An application server Software that helps a web server process web pages containing server-side scripts or tags. When
such a page is requested from the server, the web server hands the page off to the application server for processing
before sending the page to the browser. For more information, see
“How a web application works” on page 498.
Common application servers include ColdFusion and PHP.
A database A collection of data stored in tables. Each row of a table constitutes one record and each column
constitutes a field in the record, as shown in the following example:
A database driver Software that acts as an interpreter between a web application and a database. Data in a database is
stored in a proprietary format. A database driver lets the web application read and manipulate data that would
otherwise be undecipherable.
A database management system (DBMS, or database system) Software used to create and manipulate databases.
Common database systems include Microsoft Access, Oracle 9i, and
MySQL.
A database query The operation that extracts a recordset from a database. A query consists of search criteria expressed
in a database language called SQL. For example, the query can specify that only certain columns or only certain records
be included in the recordset.
A dynamic page A web page customized by an application server before the page is sent to a browser.
A recordset A set of data extracted from one or more tables in a database, as in the following example:
Number LastName FirstName Position Goal
Records
(rows)
Fields (columns)
Number
Database table
LastName FirstName Position Goals
Recordset table
LastName FirstName Position