anyone willing to help me with my site? I'm trying to do everything from scratch and I not that knowlegable on any of the three. I have my CSS coding just about perfect, but I just don't fully understand how to reuse the external code on each page without it adding it multiple times. The MySQL database I need help with designing the layout for the content. This I'm a noob at. PHP coding I understand a few basic things and thats about all. James
It sounds more like you want someone to do the work for you. There are lots of CSS, MySQL and PHP tutorials and examples online. if you study those for a week you should have no problem setting up your site. It will definately pay off if you just stick with it and learn it now as it will save you lots of time in the future. Shiggsy
php sorry but no I do not want someone to do the work for me. Right now where I am stuck if on creating the relational database I don't understand how to setup the tables to limit the redundant info. for example I don't want to have some hundreds of fields in the database with "Playstation2" I've read something about using foreign keys & primary keys so that you could just have it where id #1 for this is equal to Playstation2 but that I can't seem to figure out how to do on my own.
The MySQL part is bar none the easiest. If you don't have a grasp on how to set up the tables, then you should spend some time fucking around with it. I actually use a system's name at my site. If you really want to get efficient, you can use an enum for each system: 0=ps2 1=ps 2=ps3 3=dreamcast or something like that. You just have to keep a map of them somewhere else. I keep an associate array in a function file on the PHP side which will map out all that shit.
Sorry if I mess this up, just got done with work a bit ago and am trying to recall this from memory... To learn the whole relational database deal, start with access. IIRC, the relations between two tables (one field from each that "related") is either one-to-one (e.g., one business can only have one address for the home office), or one-to-many (e.g., one developer can have many games in its library) and is usually one-to-many. Many-to-many is possible, but is bad practice (Rules of Normalization for databases). Each table should have a primary key. The foreign key is a second key in a table, and is the identifier for what will be used for the relation to the other table. That is this: - Table one contains some data, and has a primary key. - Table two also contains some data, and also has a primary key. - A foreign key is added to table one, which will link to the primary key in table two. Like I said, try messing with Access to get the hang of things. Access can display the SQL of things done. It's been a few years since I messed with SQL and databases, so you might want to look online for tutorials and info, and possibly some books, but first thing's first: learn to set up your tables properly (Rules of Normalization!) so that there's less confusion when you start doing more advanced things with your data.
