php script to convert to static html pages

[lsl]

I'm not a programmer, but working with a website that has a mysql database and php. I've been manually changing some of the pages put out by the database into static pages.

Today I was told that a script can do this. I noted some discussions on this board in the past about the same thing.

I'd like to know how this is different from doing a rewrite to rename the files.

I spoke to a webhost who told me I could update the database and each night with this script and the results would put out revised .html pages.

I need to know for sure that these are genuine .html pages and not just part of the database with different names.

If anyone is familiar with this please let me know and shed more light on such a script, where I could read more about it.

[Pig]

In your current scenario, data is pulled from the db and then displayed on the page. In the scenario you are looking at now, the data is pulled. Rather than just display it on the page, it would write a brand new file (possibly deleting the old one if you wanted to) to your server.

So, in a nutshell, 'yes'.

[lsl]

good.. thank you

Now I just need to find that script .. thank you for confirming the info and figure out how to do it

This needs to be done server side I take it?

[Pig]

Yes, it's done server side. Most likely run from a cron job.