[RESOLVED] Advice on weekly page updates - caching? XML? Straight PHP? Help!

[Dolemite50]

Hi,

I often update the front page on a music website manually, and I'm hoping to make it a little more automated. I'll just describe one section as an example since they're all about the same process.

The "Popular Songs" area has 8 slots for currently high-scoring tracks. When I set out to update Slot 1; I visit the replacement artist's page to snag their pic and info. I make a thumb in Photoshop and then replace the current Slot 1 artist's pic and details locally in Dreamweaver. When all 8 of have been updated I upload the new thumbs and index page to finish. Volia!

The deal is that a quick query based on a songid would grab all of the details I've been updating manually. I even have thumbs for all the artists' pics ready to go via GD, but I'm not sure how to go about implementing the weekly automation. I'm trying to steer clear of anything that would require running mysql queries to gather info that is static all week long. I'd like to have a form where I enter 8 songids and when I submit; it re-writes and/or caches my index page with the new info.

How do I go about that? Is this a job for XML? I've never used it, but from what I can gather I'd use a seperate xml file something like:
<slot_1_data>
<slot 1_pic_path> /thumbs/1234.jpg </slot_1_pic_path>
<slot_1_artist_name> The Dudes </slot_1_artist_name>...
</slot_1_data>
<slot_2_data>...
Then once a week I put 8 new songids into my PHP form and it queries the DB to gather the info and re-write the xml file. The index page would then just reference the different XML tags for the slot data.

Is that about how it works? If so,..would it be a good route to take for my situation? If it is; can anybody please point me in the right direction for the PHP to XML part?

Thanks, I really appreciate any advice on the matter.

[frikikip]

Hi,

The XML idea is nice, but it is also a waste of resources. You don't want to query the databse for information that is static for a week (which is a good idea). Moving your data to xml and parsing the xml everytime the page is requested is moving your load from the database to php. Just like querying an database, parsing XML is an expensive (resources) operation.

If I was you I would simply cache the frontpage for a long time. Caching is fast and it doesn't require a lot of resources. If you are using a template engine like smarty, caching functionality is often intergrated and easy to implement.

You could also periodically generate your html file. This approach is the fastest (when a page is requested there is no parsing done at all), but it is also not very user friendly. If you need to do an extra update to your site you would have to regenerate the new html file by hand.

Personally I would go for a integrated caching system. It is as flexible as you want it to be and you can achieve great performance.

Good luck,

Marvin.

[Dolemite50]

Thanks for the advice, Marvin.

For some reason I don't think that Smarty is an available option for me. I remember checking into it last year and getting shot down. I'll check again to be sure.

Is there any way that I could do some sort of a happy medium where after I submit the form; it parses the XML data and then creates a new index file which is used all week?

[frikikip]

Yes that can be done. Smarty is able to write files on the server, so if you can make an directory writable it can be done.