Re: Seeking strategy/algorithm for maintaining order of records

On Oct 15, 2011, at 8:57 PM, Stephen wrote: > I am building a site for my photography. > > The photographs are displayed by category. > > The category table has a field for "order" > > In my control panel I want to be able to change the order of the categories by changing the > values in the category field. > > I can dynamically build a form of all categories and have a field for new order number, Then > loop through the POST and update the values. > > The field is not unique, so I am not worried about DB errors. > > But I wonder if there is a better way. > > Thoughts please? > > Thank you > Stephen > Stephen: What you describe is a multistep problem. There are many ways to show pictures (images) in any order you want. I commonly store images in a database with their associated data, such as id, image name, size, type, category, and other such data. Then when I want to display any image(s), I simply pull the images from the database in the order and/or category as I want them displayed. If I want to sort them in some fashion, I can use any field by using a MySQL query string, such as "SELECT * FROM image_db WHERE what=whatfield ASC ORDER BY whatever". From there it's a simple process to display the data obtained from the database by using a pagination scheme of some type, like this: http://php1.net/b/pagination-images/ or this: http://webbytedd.com/bbb/paging/ In some instances, I even have a content management system where I can set the order of the pictures I want to appear in what order by assigning them a sort order number/category. For example, if I have 20 pictures (numbers 1-20) each having a sort number, they will be shown in that order. If I want to change the order of the presentation, such as insert image 16 into position 3, I simply change the order number of picture 16 to 2.5 and resort the categories on integer. Bingo, the images are resorted as I want. There are many ways to do this -- you just need to define what you specifically want to do and break it down into manageable parts. Cheers, tedd _____________________ tedd@sperling.com http://sperling.com