Web Databases
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The power of the WWW
comes not simply from static
HTML pages - which can be very
attractive, and the important first step into the WWW -
but especially from the ability to support those pages
with powerful
software,
especially when interfacing to databases.
The combination of attractive screen displays,
exceptionally easy to use controls and
navigational aids,
and powerful underlying software,
has opened up the potential for people everywhere to tap
into the vast global information resources of the
Internet.
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Here are some of the major considerations:
- What kind of database?
Some options are relational / SQL;
free text;
hierarchical (e.g. gopher).
Deciding this depends on the natural structure of your data, and the
kind of
search and
navigation system you want.
- Is this data plain text, or is it tables, or is there a nesting
structure?
- If the data are tabular, do you want to search on just one or two
columns at any time, or do you want to be able to formulate complex
queries involving boolean combinations of boolean values?
There's a number of ways that can be provided for the user to
navigate & locate information in an information system, or data
resource.
- At the simplest end of the spectrum, if your data can be structured as
a small table and you just want to retrieve records according to one or
two field values, then a small custom program will suffice.
- On the other hand, if you want to be able to search for complex
interrelations in the data, then you may need a relational database.
Articles and Tutorials
Using a MySQL database with PHP
Ian Gilfillan
September 23, 2002
It's time to add some dynamic content to your Web site. The best choice for
ease-of-use, price and support is the combination of PHP and MySQL. This
article introduces the beginner to using MySQL with PHP.
Introduction to relational databases
Ian Gilfillan
June 24, 2002
Large databases can easily get out of hand when badly designed, leading to
poor performance, and resulting in the whole database needing to be rebuilt
later. This article is a brief introduction to the topic of relational
databases.
SQL joins - multi-table queries
Ian Gilfillan
February 28, 2002
To harness the true power of relational databases it is vital to master
queries using more than one table. This article will introduce you to
database joins - queries using 2 or more tables.
Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL: Part 4
SitePoint
January 24, 2002
This final installment covers publishing MySQL data on the Web, connecting
to MySQL with PHP, sending SQL queries with PHP, inserting data into the
database, and even has a "homework" assignment. This book covers everything
from installing PHP & MySQL under Windows or Linux, through to building a
live Web-based content management system.
Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL: Part 3
SitePoint
January 17, 2002
This third installment introduces PHP, variables and operators, user
interaction and forms, control structures, and multi-purpose pages. This
book covers everything from installing PHP & MySQL under Windows or Linux,
through to building a live Web-based content management system.
Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL: Part 2
SitePoint
January 10, 2002
This second installment covers an introduction to databases, logging on to
MySQL, defininfg SQL, inserting data into a table, and modifying stored
data. This book covers everything from installing PHP & MySQL under Windows
or Linux, through to building a live Web-based content management
system.
Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL: Part 1
SitePoint
January 3, 2002
Together, PHP & MySQL form the most widely used open source database and
scripting technologies on the Web today. This book covers everything from
installing PHP & MySQL under Windows or Linux, through to building a live
Web-based content management system.
Optimizing MySQL, Hardware and the Mysqld Variables
Ian Gilfillan
December 17, 2001
You've fine-tuned your indexes, and have optimized those queries to the
bone. But still your MySQL database is crawling. It's time to look at
tweaking the mysqld variables, what hardware improvements you can make, and
how you can compile MySQL to run just that little bit faster.
Optimizing MySQL Queries and Indexes
Ian Gilfillan
November 26, 2001
Building a database-driven site is one thing. But all too often your
masterpiece starts performing like a donkey when it becomes popular. Learn
how to optimize your queries and indexes in MySQL, and potentially speed up
your application many times over.
Expert One-on-One: Oracle: Part 4
This fourth and final installment looks at making the database run faster
and the DBA-developer relationship. This manuscript is Chapter 1
"Developing Successful Oracle Applications" from the Wrox Press book
Expert One on One: Oracle.
Expert One-on-One: Oracle: Part 3
This third installment looks at database independence, the impact of
standards, features and functions, and solving problems simply. This
manuscript is Chapter 1 "Developing Successful Oracle Applications"
from the Wrox Press book Expert One on One: Oracle.
Expert One-on-One: Oracle: Part 2
This manuscript is Chapter 1 "Developing Successful Oracle
Applications" from the Wrox Press book Expert One on One:
Oracle. The second installment covers understanding Oracle
architecture, using bind variables, understanding concurrency control, and
multi-versioning.
Expert One-on-One: Oracle: Part 1
This manuscript is Chapter 1 "Developing Successful Oracle
Applications" from the Wrox Press book Expert One on One:
Oracle. This first part covers developing successful Oracle
applications and the Black Box approach.
Beginning SQL Programming: Part 3
This third installment covers configurations for using SQL, two and three
tier architecture on a LAN, n-tier architecture on the Web, mainframe and
terminals, and mainframe to mainframe. This book provides the reader with a
firm grasp of SQL concepts.
Beginning SQL Programming: Part 2
This second installment covers procedural versus declarative languages,
SQL's place in the data center and obtaining SQL. This book will furnish
readers with a firm grasp of SQL concepts that you can work with straight
away, as well as provide solid foundations and challenging ideas with which
you can later develop more advanced SQL techniques.
Beginning SQL Programming
This book will furnish readers with a firm grasp of SQL concepts that you
can work with straight away, as well as provide solid foundations and
challenging ideas with which you can later develop more advanced SQL
techniques. This first excerpt covers the history of SQL, standards,
terminology and the current state of SQL.
Simple SQL, Part III: SQL in Action
In the previous two parts of this series, we looked at the underlying
concepts of SQL and many of the basic SQL query components. In this,
the third and final installment of the series, we'll look at why you'd want
to use SQL, and an example of it in action, via the Microsoft Visual
InterDev 6.0 programming environment.
Simple SQL, Part II : Getting Started With SQL
Now that you've learned exactly what SQL is (in my previous column), and
how to use the standard SELECT functions, it's time to move ahead to other
features. In this section, I'll be covering special grouping, logical and
mathematical functions.
Simple SQL : Getting Started With SQL
So what is SQL, and what can it do for you? At its simplest, SQL is a basic
language that allows you to "talk" to a database and extract
useful information. Learn the lingo in "Simple SQL : Getting Started
With SQL".
Introduction to Database Manipulation with ADO
The average surfer today demands personalized, customized, interactive web
pages that change content on user request. Learn how to fill that demand by
using ADO to connect to any ODBC complian database.
Database Normalization
By now some of you are familiar with the basics of using databases in your
cgi scripts. Many of your databases will be small, with one or two tables.
But as you become braver, tackling bigger projects, you may start finding
that the design of your tables is proving problematic. The SQL you write
starts to become unwieldy, and data anomalies start to creep in. It is time
to learn about database normalization, or the optimization of tables.
Using a flat-file database in Perl
Web developers often need ways of speeding up the development process,
without spending thousands of dollars for software. Here's how to build an
easy to use database in Perl and access it via a web page.
Introduction to Databases for the Web
This is a free four part course, suitable for webmasters and web developers
with little or no database experience. This tutorial is a rough and ready
introduction to databases that will provide you with the tools you need to
get to work!
The Perl You Need to Know: Part 6 "Dabbling in Live Databases:
Microsoft Access"
Many words have been written about databases and Web sites, and these are
some more -- but with a twist, because in The Perl You Need to Know, we
cover just that -- what you need to know.
The Perl You Need to Know: Part 7 - Dabbling in Live Databases: MySQL
MySQL is hot stuff. Hot, not in the catwalks-in-Paris sense, but among the
"does this shirt looks clean enough?" set, MySQL is definitely all the
rage. With good reason -- who can resist the allure of a free (usually),
stable, fast, scalable, and mature relational database server and
management system?
Dabbling in Live Databases - GUFE (goofy): The Generic but Usable Front End
This tutorial shows you how to use Perl to build a visual front end to the
live databases we have been dabbling with these past two months' articles.
It's simple, it's attractive, and it's GUFE - "goofy" - the Generic but
Usable Front End
Web Page Databases
Web page databases provide a simple, inexpensive and effective tool for
query and reporting of data on a web page. These databases offer an
alternative to client/server databases and HTML lists or tables.
Database Software
DBI
is a database access Application Programming Interface (API) for the Perl
Language. The DBperl API Specification defines a set of functions,
variables and conventions that provide a consistent database interface
independant of the actual database being used. The following
DBD
- Database Drivers are currently available: Oracle, mSQL, Ingres,
Informix, C-ISAM, DB2, Quickbase, Interbase.
mSQL, or mini SQL,
is a light weight database engine which supports a subset of ANSI SQL. It
provides fast access to stored data with low memory requirements and runs
on a wide variety of Unix systems: mSQL has been developed under Sun OS
4.1.1 but has been tested under Solaris 2.x (release 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5),
Ultrix 4.3, Linux, and OSF/1 (cc not gcc). That said, it should "autoconf"
and build on most BSD derived systems, SVR4 based systems or POSIX O/S's
(that should cover most of them). It has been reported that it works out-
of-the-box on HP-UX, NeXT, SCO, Sequent, Cray, Tandem, *BSD and a few
others.
mSQL was developed by David J. Hughes at Bond University, Australia and can
be used without cost by Universities, non-commercial research groups, and
not-for-profit organizations. mSQL offers a subset of SQL as its query
interface. Although it only supports a subset of SQL, everything it
supports is in accordance with the ANSI SQL specification. The mSQL
distribution includes the mSQL server, client programs, a C programming
interface for client software, and several tools. User contributed software
is available including interfaces to mSQL from Perl, Tcl, REXX, Java and
Python, www interfaces, a Windows port of the client library and much
more.
MySQL
MySQL is the world's most popular open source database, designed to be
fast, reliable and easy to use. For heavily-accessed websites it is one of
the best choices because of its speed, lightweight footprint and of course
its price - free! It can be configured to run lightning fast
transactionless disk access, or fully-featured transactions, replication
and other features needed in mission critical operations. It runs on almost
all operating systems and has been integrated into most programming
languages and environments. Picked as the top Linux database by Linux
Magazine for 2000 and 2001, it outperforms many commercial databases for a
host of uses, especially when it comes to the web.
Oracle software
supports not only structured alphanumeric data placed in traditional
database tables and rows, but also unstructured text, images, audio, and
video. It is used to manage everything -from personal information, to
corporate data centers, to giant multimedia libraries that serve up
information on demand. It runs on almost every popular computer, from the
smallest laptop, to the largest supercomputer, to the Network Computer that
will bring interactive news, entertainment, education, and commerce into
your home and office. Oracle's core product, the
Oracle database,
has emerged as the undisputed leader around the world.
ObjectStore
Object-oriented languages such as Java and C++ and interactive development
environments like Visual Basic, Delphi, etc. have become the development
tools of choice for Internet applications. ObjectStore provides seamless
integration with these languages and environments which means objects are
stored in their natural state (as objects, not rows and columns) in the
database. ObjectStore includes development APIs for Java, C++ and ActiveX,
and it integrates with languages more seamlessly than any other DBMS, which
improves your learning curve and productivity. And, ObjectStore supports
CORBA, IIOP, JavaBeans, DCOM, X/Open XA, OQL, SQL, ODMG, ANSI standards and
others so it will integrate seamlessly with your computing infrastructure
today, and tomorrow.
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is the most advanced open-source relational database system.
Descended from the University of California's INGRES and POSTGRES projects,
it is almost fully compliant with the SQL99 standard, and supports foreign
keys, triggers and transactions, as well as containing an extensive library
of functions and operators.
The Library:
Authoring,
Software.
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