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Posted by Colin Fine on 10/08/06 22:22
jflash wrote:
> OK, I am now fairly thoroughly confused. What I am asking is for a way
> to have a page which can display information from a database filtered
> and/or sorted based on arguments supplied by the user in the URL. I
> wish I could explain it better, but that's the best way I know how.
> Anything else that I need to know, I suppose I can figure out later.
> Right now, I'm just trying to get the sorting/filtering down.
>
> On Oct 8, 11:19 am, "Ron Barnett" <ron.REM...@RJBarnett.co.uk.REMOVE>
> wrote:
>> "Colin Fine" <n...@kindness.demon.co.uk> wrote in messagenews:egalj3$lfp$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk...
>>
>>> jflash wrote:
>>>>> On Oct 7, 11:11 am, usenet+2...@john.dunlop.name wrote:
>>>>>> jflash:
>>>>>>> I am wanting to set my site up using dynamic urlsWhy?
>>>>>> At least you are thinking about URL design before publishing your
>>>>>> pages: that puts you ahead of the masses. Retrospective URL design
>>>>>> is, in a word, iffy.
>>>>>>> (I'm assuming that's what they're called, an example of what
>>>>>>> I have in mind is index.php?page=[pagename]).'Dynamic URL' is a
>>>>>>> misleading though common term for URLs with query
>>>>>> parts. Misleading because there is nothing dynamic about URLs. That
>>>>>> example, we can say, is a relative reference consisting of a path and a
>>>>>> query part (square brackets aren't allowed in query parts). Nothing
>>>>>> more. What the server does with that URL is up to you, but the URL,
>>>>>> the string of characters, is not dynamic.
>>>>>> Couple of points on your example:
>>>>>> 1. "Indexes" rarely are indexes. Are you sure there isn't a better
>>>>>> name? No name, even?
>>>>>> 2. URL suffixes, unless you see the URL as pointing to a particular
>>>>>> representation of the resource, serve no purpose. It is generally of
>>>>>> no consequence to users whether you use PHP or some other language to
>>>>>> create your pages.
>>>>>>> However, I can not figure out how to do this.I think another poster
>>>>>>> has suggested one way.
>>>>>>> I will eventually want to use SEF urls,I can guess what you mean by
>>>>>>> that, but again I think the term is
>>>>>> misleading.
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Jock
>>>> I forgot to mention one thing: how can I use this setup to call
>>>> information from a database. For example, I've seen this done where the
>>>> search query from a search on a site is entered into the URL and is
>>>> then searched for in the database. HOw, then, is this done if all of
>>>> the 'redirects' (for lack of a better word) have to be predefined?
>>>> On Oct 7, 5:10 pm, "jflash" <ki4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Ron: I assume that I simply add that code to my 'initial' page
>>>>> (index.php in the example I started with). However, I am curious how I
>>>>> define a default page to load (i.e. in my index.php example, how would
>>>>> I specify what page to include/what content to display in the event
>>>>> that no parameters are entered)? Also, do I have to manually add each
>>>>> page for the parameter to include in the file, or is there some way
>>>>> that I can use a database for the list of parameters and their
>>>>> corresponding pages?
>>>>> Jock:
>>>>> 1. I had originally thought I could use dynamic URLs to pull content
>>>>> from a database and display it on a page based on the parameters
>>>>> defined in the URL. In any case, I hope that using the dynamic URLs
>>>>> will make it easier for my users, particularly once I get search-engine
>>>>> friendly URLs set up.
>>>>> 2. Actually, I already have a version of my site up, I mainly am doing
>>>>> this because I am dooing a major overhaul for various other reasons,
>>>>> and since I have been wanting to implement this for a while now, it
>>>>> seems like a good time to do it.
>>>>> 3.1. I don't get what you're saying. I wasn't planning on using
>>>>> index.php as the base file name, I just used it for an example.
>>>>> Actually, now that you say it, I'm thinking I might use the 'index.php'
>>>>> part of the URL to serve as a category, then define the specific page
>>>>> later. I don't know, I'll decide that later.
>>>>> 3.2. I'm just using PHP because I know for a fact my server supports
>>>>> it, and I see no reason to try anythign else and risk a lack of support
>>>>> on the server end of things.
>>>>> Thanks for the help!
>>> [Top posting fixed]
>>> I don't fully understand what you are asking, but it seems to me that you
>>> have an imperfect understanding of how CGI works.
>>> A CGI script (such as a PHP program on a website) is a program that
>>> generates as output the HTML that the web server will send to the browser.
>>> Usually, the script takes arguments from the URL (usually the part after
>>> the '?') to decide what to display, and very often it will obtain some of
>>> the data on the page from a database.
>>> Often, the script is capable of producing utterly different pages
>>> depending on the input: for example, many CGI scripts display information
>>> relating to a particular key in the database (a particular site, person,
>>> company, date or whatever) and if called without the key will display a
>>> different page that asks the user to specify the key. Then the 'Submit'
>>> from that will go to the *same* script, but this time with the data it
>>> needs.
>>> If the URL has no CGI arguments, the program must cope with that case and
>>> do something appropriate, for example request the information intneeds as
>>> in the previous paragraph.
>>> If you want not just to generate distinct pages, but to go to different
>>> existing pages, you can do it by generating a HTTP header that redirects
>>> to the appropriate page.
>>> Does this help, or have I misunderstood your issue?
>>> ColinHi Jock,
>> The explanation Colin has given is absolutely correct but I suspect you are
>> still floundering ?
>>
>> referring back the code example I gave
>>
>> $page = $_REQUEST['page'];
>> if ($page == 'pageone') include './lib/pageone.php';
>>
>> This needs to be inserted as you guessed in index.php
>> calling index.php with a parameter 'page' i.e. //index.php?page=something
>> will cause the $_REQUEST array to contain an element 'page' with a value
>> 'something'
>> having extracted the key / value pair from the array it as in the example
>> you can do whatever you like with the 'something' - you can simply haul in
>> another static page, or call a routine that uses 'something' as the key to
>> extract data from a database.
>> the absence of a parameter is simply the default call for the page
>> index.php, so I would assume that it was a screen with some data entry that
>> would then be used in a subsequent call. - All this is simple HTML / HTTP
>> and not really PHP at all.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Ron
>
To do the sorting and filtering, you need to generate SQL queries based
on the arguments, and pass them to your database system.
Look at the examples in http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.mysql.php.
Your query will be this sort of thing:
$query = "SELECT field1, field2, field3 FROM table WHERE ".
"match1 = '{$_GET['data1']}' AND ".
"match2 = '{$_GET['data2']}'";
from
index.php?data1=xxx&data2=yyy
Colin
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