Form Question

awarren71

Hi,

I am trying to set up a form, and I want to process it using PHP and dump the results into a database (I think).

Here's my question: this form is fairly long, so I'm thinking the only way the owner will make logical sense of the input is to save it in a database and retrieve it in a ordered fashion when needed. I was considering just sending the data as an email plain text file, but I don't think that's even close to feasible. What do you think?

Also, since the form is fairly long, should certain parts of it be sent to specific tables, or should the entire form make up one huge file? I really am confused with this, and am not sure how to plan the database.

Any advice would be wonderful.

Thanks,

Amanda

sfhc

Hello,

Yeah sending form to e-mail is pretty cheesy.

Put it in the database.

Depending on what the data being collected is, and how it will be used by the apps various users, it is likely the data should end up in more than one table.

Look up database normalization for more info.

awarren71

The database is for a landscaping site - the visitor can fill out a detailed form on what he/she would like to have considered for landscaping design plans.

The company then reads this info, and bases their first consultation session on it.

Amanda

sfhc

np 🙂

I would imagine that the form aslo asks for personal contact info in addition to the landscapping preferences.

What I would do is this

table potentialCustomerData - hold name, phone number, etc...

table landscapingPreference - holds preferences

The catch to this is that in the table potentialCustomerData you must have a primary key in the table because you are going to use it as a foriegn key in landscapingPreference (this is how the first table knows what land scaping preferences belong to which person)

awarren71

I have to be able to link both tables together, or the database will be practically useless.

One thing about the landscapingPreferences table - some of the fields are rather long text boxes - is it ok to keep this much info in one table? I am talking about probably 20 to 30 items to complete, with a text box after each major section for additional comments (I counted five of these). That makes for an awfully long record.

Thanks for all your help,

Amanda