Re: php-windows Digest 12 Feb 2001 22:49:30 -0000 Issue 442

Tom Sorry for the late reply but I have had a week's holiday. << I'm going to sound like a database freak >> No. I don't think so. It looks like the best idea to me. Without an organised approach like a database the whole thing could get very unwieldy if the number of pictures became large, - and the code maintenance would be no picnic either. Which DBMS do you use? A very popular choice for the web seems to be MySQL. I don't know what proportion of ISPs support this but I do have some minor reservations about it. They are not serious misgivings because my web application is not a "mission critical" one, but some of them could be in different circumstances. No Commit/Rollback, no subQueries, no Stored Procedures, no built-in referential integrity (ie no Foreign Keys and no Triggers) Or is my information on MySQL totally out of date? I believe the justification for some of these omissions is the speed penalty overhead. Not having used MySQL I cannot comment on this. But the question which most bothers me is that of referential integrity. Supporters of MySQL claim that it is not a problem since a well designed application should properly manage this. But what would prevent database access from /outside/ an application? On the plus side, from looking at published code examples one big advantage of MySQL/PHP seems to be the seamless ease with which they work together. I have seen no ODBC calls, just PHP embedded SQL statements. Does PHP access MySQL natively, or what? << By the way, it is possible to use javascript variables in php - I've got some script I can dig out to show you how if you need it. >> Being new to all this I really would appreciate that, if you do come across it. John > In article <982018170.14896.ezmlm@lists.php.net>, Tom Mathews wrote: > Subject: Re: [PHP-WIN] PHP 'include' function > > I'm going to sound like a database freak, but my solution to nearly all > 'dynamic' pages is to pull everything out of a database - > My implementation would probably be four fields - ID, Name (to display in > the select list), text and image. You query the db to get a list of 'Name's > and then use the ID to pull out the relevent image and text. > By the way, it is possible to use javascript variables in php - I've got > some script I can dig out to show you how if you need it. > > Tom > John Morrison wrote: > > > Hi. > > > > I have just discovered server side scripting and am trying > > to get to grips with it using PHP4 with Xitami on Windows > > Me. Straight away, on my first project, it looks as though > > I have found a problem I am not going to solve without > > help. > > > > I have an HTML form with an Option Select drop down list > > which displays choices of which JPEG file to load into an > > <IMG> picturebox. After selecting an option, clicking a > > button runs a Javascript function which displays the image, > > changing the previous picture. So far so good, but here is > > the problem. I also wish to display a caption and > > descriptive paragraph or two in an adjacent scrollable > > <TEXTAREA>. > > > > I thought a good way would be to have a text file for each > > picture on the server and display the appropriate one as > > required. But, so far, I have not managed to find any file > > operation capabilities in Javascript. > > > > My next thought was to use the PHP "include" function, or > > some other file reading technique, but I have not found a > > satisfactory way to pass the filename to PHP. A Javascript > > variable naturally cannot be passed to a PHP function so I > > had Javascript copy the file pathname to the TextArea with > > the hope of getting my include function to pick it up from > > there. But I have not succeeded. PHP does not like the > > dots in "$captionpath = > > Document.FormName.TextAreaName.Value;" and simply removes > > them. > > > > So I abandoned this and tried doing it completely outside > > of Javascript. I have tried everything I can think of > > including a rigmarole which involved the self-submit method > > <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="<?php print('$php_self'); > > ?>">. > > Without going into detail, I did manage to display the > > caption but I had other problems which made this avenue > > seem unproductive, so I did not persue it. For example, > > instead of just a clean change of the IMG and TextArea > > contents the whole page was reloaded from the server and > > repositioned at "Top of Page". Apart from the slowness of > > this, it looked massively clumsy. > > > > Am I missing the obvious?? >