Searching multiple MySQL databases

KITTfan2K

I am developing a website that has four different types of skins (Sonique, Winamp, WMP, WMP text-only)

Each type of skin has its own database, so, for example, to display a skin from the Winamp DB I'll use the following code to decide the database, based on the variable App handed in the http header.

I will have 4 databases, Skin_Winamp, Skin_Sonique, Skin_WMP, and Skin_WMPt (for text-only skins) [ Edit: 'Will' means that I've only got the Winamp DB sorted for now. ]

    $db = mysql_connect("localhost","username","password");
  mysql_select_db("kittfan2_uk_db",$db);
  $comp_id = "SELECT * FROM Skin_".$App." WHERE comp_id=".$Component;
  $fetched = mysql_query ($comp_id,$db);
  $skinFile = mysql_fetch_object($fetched);

Then I look in the $skinFile variable to find the various attributes of the skin.

I want to search these databases.
How would I go about making a 'search engine' to look for a particular skin by name, or author?
I've got, on another page, a search box with the choice between searching for skin, author or reviewer and the choice of app, (the form method is post, btw) but how would I use these variables to select a database and search it?

KITTfan2K.

p.s. I have found a script to let me find multiple records, but I need some help to figure out the intricacies of searching.

bastien

a form element to let the user pick a skin type...so you can direct the search to the right table

you may want to place a cookie for future use (advise the user, or not😃 ) and then search for the cookie value....another option might be to have the user register and store the same data in another table (or cookie) to be accessed later

hth

zalath

IMHO there's no point in putting every different type in their own table, let alone a database. I'd suggest you create two tables, one with the skin information and another with the type information

NAME AUTHOR TYPEID

XXXX XXXXXXX 1

TYPEID TYPENAME

1 WINAMP

Catch my drift? this is called a relational database ;D

KITTfan2K

This is called a relational database ;D

That's what my databases teacher has been trying to tell me all this time!

I'm doing a college course in computing, and one of the units is database design.

I'd hate to think that I could actually put it to use!

The reason that I decided to go for different tables is that I didn't want to have the component ID numbers (That's what the system uses to identify skins) to be like this:
1: Winamp skin
2: Winamp skin
3: Sonique skin
4: Winamp skin
5: WMP skin

and so on.

kittfan2k

bastien

the user never really needs to see the id...it has no practical value to them... all you need is a way to uniquely identify the row
needed, nothing else

the general thing to remember about db design is that primary keys and foreign keys really should not affect the data, they are there solely to link tables and to identify rows for data manipulation...