Datasheet

Part I: Developing a Web Database Application Using PHP and MySQL

Web based or Web application. If the Web application requires the long-term

storage of information using a database, it’s a Web database application. This

book provides you with the information that you need to develop a Web data-

base application that can be accessed with Web browsers such as Internet

Explorer and Firefox.

A Web database application is designed to help a user accomplish a task. It

can be a simple application that displays information in a browser window

(for example, current job openings when the user selects a job title) or a

complicated program with extended functionality (for example, the book-

ordering application at Amazon.com or the bidding application at eBay).

A Web database application consists of just two pieces:

✓ Database: The database is the long-term memory of your Web database

application. The application can’t fulfill its purpose without the data-

base. However, the database alone is not enough.

✓ Application: The application piece is the program or group of programs

that performs the tasks. Programs create the display that the user

sees in the browser window; they make your application interactive by

accepting and processing information that the user types in the browser

window; and they store information in the database and get information

out of the database. (The database is useless unless you can move data

in and out.)

The Web pages that you’ve previously created with HTML alone are static,

meaning the user can’t interact with the Web page. All users see the same

Web page. Dynamic Web pages, on the other hand, allow the user to inter-

act with the Web page. Different users might see different Web pages. For

instance, one user looking at a furniture store’s online product catalog might

choose to view information about the sofas, whereas another user might

choose to view information about coffee tables. To create dynamic Web

pages, you must use another language in addition to HTML.

One language widely used to make Web pages dynamic is JavaScript.

JavaScript is useful for several purposes, such as mouse-overs (for example,

to highlight a navigation button when the user moves the mouse pointer over

it) or accepting and validating information that users type into a Web form.

However, it’s not useful for interacting with a database. You wouldn’t use

JavaScript to move the information from the Web form into a database. PHP,

however, is a language particularly well suited to interacting with databases.

PHP can accept and validate the information that users type into a Web form

and can also move the information into a database. The programs in this

book are written with PHP.

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