Maintaing a client-side table

[Anon]

Hi,

I have a MySQL database, and I'm working to create a PHP interface to it. One of the tables consists of a list of names and addresses, and is used to fill in 3 drop-down boxes on a particular page.

I'd want to keep this list cached on the client side, and periodically sync it (perhaps when the MD5's don't agree?). Can anyone give advice on how to handle this in php?

Thanks,

Eric

[edwardsbc]

PHP itself can't do it. PHP is server side scripting. Now if you want to delve into Javascript you may be able to work something out. And, of course, you can have your PHP page send the Javascript to the client.

Unfortunately, I never mess with client side processing, so someone else will have to fill you in on how to pass data to the client datastructures.

[bastien]

You don' maintain a client_side table, you have an array with the data that only persists for a while, length of session usually, then the data is lost.

You haven't mentioned how long the data is to persist...so this is tough to gauge...

You can use the requery method of PHP to refresh this type of data...check at www.php.net for more details...or perhaps schedule a script to run at timed intervals...

hth

Bastien

[electroniceric]

Thanks for the replies. My problem is that I want to avoid sending 3 x 240K of data just to build combo boxes with very long lists - the lists don't vary much from query to query.

My thought was to send a javascript script as a .js file, or pehaps an XML file which would then be parsed on the client side to build these combo boxes.
In the optimal case, I could avoid sending the .js file over and over again by caching it on the client. So perhaps I should reformulate my question like this:
Is there a clever way to generate javascript code using PHP, then use caching to avoid sending the code lots of times?

Thanks,

Eric