parse cieces of a large document

Anon

I am a real programming dummy, trying to build a library website.... Question:
I am building a database of songs and tunes, with a text and image file for every tune.

I would like site-visitor to be able to search for tunes by subject, or by alphabetical order, and the results of that search put on one page, with clickable links that -when clicked- display the tune, with text and image file.

It probably is possible, but how? and is it something I can learn, dummy as I am...

Vincent

sevex

definitely something you could learn... but how much programming experience do you have? do you have a database created?

Anon

I know HTML, just had my first steps in php...I do have a MySQL database.

Vincent

Anon

Being a new PHP programmer, you might find this project rather difficult, although thats no reason to give up yet!

First off, decide how your database should be structured. How are you going to store the tunes and images? How are you going to name them? You need to draw up a database structure with all the data you need to 'serve' to your users.

It would probably be an idea to put data in the MySQL database, and images and tunes in separate directories on your server. The filenames should be stored in the corresponding record in the database, so that the text and files can be linked together.

Creating a searchable directory will require learning of MySQL commands, which aren't difficult. A simple form will need to be coded in HTML, passing variables to a PHP page that will take the user's input and try to match them to database entries. Learning regular expression syntax will be helpful, and I'm sure lots of ppl here will be able to help you with that.

Good Luck!