sort/parse html by date?

[patrick99e99]

Hi everyone.. I am brand new to this forum and to the world of PHP, but am eager to learn... And I am unsure about the best approach for my goal here, so I'll explain what the situation is, and hopefully someone here can give me some suggestions on what I should do-- and maybe some examples on how I can do it?

Ok.. I have a webpage (highly css formatted) which displays information about seminars/workshops/retreats and their dates.

There are many many many of these, and there are many that are going to be continued to be added to this page.

the html content is something like this:

1. a div class which specifies whether the background image in that <div> is a logo for a workshop, retreat, masterclass, etc.

2. an h1 and h2 stating the city and location of the event

3. a paragraph formatted so that the text floats beside the image-- the text is the actual street address.

4. a paragraph formatted to appear under the image-- the text is the date and time.

So, my question is-- is there a way that I can just enter this html in to a file to be included via php, which is not in any particular order, but then with the use of php, it can sort through and find the date in each block of html and display it in chronological order.

Is this going to require the use of a database?

Again, I am someone with a good knowledge of html and css, but absolutely none when it comes to databases and php... Though I do know how to program 6502 and applescript!!!

-patrick

[Rodney_H_]

Hi, Patrick:

Welcome to the wonderful world of PHP.

What you would like to do sounds like a perfect opportunity/candidate for a PHP/MySQL project. (yes, databases and PHP together.)

However, I suggest you learn how to use PHP prior to adding the increasing complexity of database functions for the first couple of weeks.

Learn how to display information on the web page via the print() and echo() functions.

Then learn about variables and variable scope.

Also, be sure to learn about arrays and control structures

The best thing, in my opinion, is to go through some online tutorials:

http://www.zend.com/php/beginners/

http://www.hudzilla.org/phpbook/

http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php

http://www.tizag.com/phpT/

After you go through a few tutorials, you should be able to do what you want with an array and the include function from a file. Then, you will be able to move on to using dynamic data, IE a postgre or mysql database...

I hope that helps.