Re: access to a access db via php

Mathias, Welcome and we hope you'll have fun. At 12:53 PM 6/25/01 +0200, you wrote:

Hello NG, it's the first time I use this NG and I'm not sure whether I'm I right here or not. The problem: I'm a beginner in php (just started to read the first introductions). I created a "guestbook" with FP2000. The entrys where safed in and shown from a db. FP 2000 nearly created it by itself using asp. The problem is that my provider doesn't support a db connection via asp. They told me that php3 is supported. My question: Can I use the created db (where my guestbook entrys are safed) and edit and show results via php? I think yes but all tutorials I found about it described a odbc connection and I think the provider I'm using doesn't support this , too.

Confirm with your ISP: - which version of PHP is supported - is ODBC support compiled in - is an Access database supported

Is there any possibilty to work in an access DB without any odbc connection (cause then I need a server which supports DNS and so on and all Servers I knew are too expensive for me at the moment). Maybe I can access the db via php like a text file?

Why do you need DNS? If an IP number is needed for ODBC connectivity to work you can just use localhost (127.0.0.1) for development, retrieving the value from an include file. On your production machine you use a file with the same name, but with the appropriate IP number. OR - Do you mean DSN -- Data Source Name? If so you can establish that on your local Windows machines, and your ISP will certainly have to give you one for database access on their server. The DSN can be passed to the PHP odbc_connect call as a variable. Same as for IP numbers as above. Go to www.php.net and check which databases are supported. They are listed alphabetically in the manual. There's a double whammy here - the manual reflects the current version, your ISP may be a couple of versions behind. I believe you will find direct support for Access, but again your ISP has to have compiled it in for it to function. The beauty of ODBC is that you have a more portable interface you can take to other databases. Yes you can use a text file, but it's more likely that your ISP supports MySQL which will give you good results with a guestbook app. With a text file you will end up with a lot of sequential reads - a real performance killer.

There are many question I have, sorry if this description isn't precise enough. I'm glad about any hints, comments, suggestions, links or whatsoever that would help me. Thanks in advance to read and answer this long posting. MFG Matthias -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-db-unsubscribe@lists.php.net For additional commands, e-mail: php-db-help@lists.php.net To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net