Date: 09/13/05 (Web Development)    Keywords: php, database, sql, web

I have been working on some databases that I'd like to put up on the web eventually. They are mostly inventories of my philatelic, numismatic collections, mp3s, videos in Excel format right now. I would be able to add, update, and remove entries from my website (with admin password of course) using forms or if I have tons of entries to do I can upload the updated database instead. Visitors, including myself would be able to search the databases by using dropboxes to narrow down the query and find relevant entries or use a simple keyword search. The results would be displayed in a table with links to individual entries than would be displayed in a form-like fashion with any graphic available relating to the entry (ex. a photograph of a coin).

The problem is, i have no clue how to do this. First of all, what format should these database be in? Access dbs? What resources are there to learn how to set up this searchable/queriable database? I intend to have these searchable inventories on my website and the individual pages are php. So the display of these results should be compatible with them. Do I use WebSQL? I need to learn how to set up a form and have it hooked up with the database, but what language is it?

I'm so clueless I don't even know where to look. Any help is appreciated!

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdev/243879.html