Why Do I Need A Database?

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If you're not familiar with the term as it relates to the web,a database is a ...
... of data.
It can be ... a list of email ...
to a set of names, ... andphone numb If you're not familiar with the term as it relates to the web,a database is a structured collection of data.
It can be anythingfrom a list of email addresses to a set of names, addresses andphone numbers.By far the most popular database management system is mySQL,because it is free, works well, and most web hosts have itinstalled. This can be used in conjunction with a language suchas PHP or Cold Fusion to create a website which interacts withthe database.PHP is probably the most popular of languages for interactingwith mySQL databases.
It can be easily used to create webpagesfor your site dynamically. This means that, rather than a siteconsisting of many static or unchanging webpages, each page isgenerated based on information in your database, at the time thepage is accessed by a user.Creating a web site in a language such as PHP and using adatabase to store the information, or some of it, has manyadvantages over a normal static site.One of the most common and most useful ways to use a databasein your website is in a content management system.What Is It And How Does It Work?--------------------------------A content management system is a set of programs (basically,webpages containing programming code) written in a language suchas PHP.
The content management system displays the content ofyour website to your visitors and allows you to easily add, editor remove content from the site without creating a new webpage.This is accomplished by storing the content of the site in adatabase. Rather than creating a "page1.html" with a layout,title, content, etc.
you would store the title and content inthe database, along with any other information you wanted likethe author name, keywords, etc.Then, rather than having a link to "page1.html" you'd have aURL that looked something like this:http://www.yoursite.com/article.php?id=123Article.php would be a page you've written in PHP which getsinformation from your database. The "?id=123" passes the factthat the user has clicked on a link to article number 123.
Thepage would access your database, find article 123, and send backa webpage to your visitor with that article in the body. But,the difference between this and a static page is that you usethe same webpage to access other information:http://www.yoursite.com/article.php?id=124You're accessing the same article.php, but you've told it youwant article 124, and a new page would be created and sentto you with article 124 in the body.The content management system also would allow you to add, editor remove content from your site without editing many webpages.You'd simply have separate pages setup which allow you to editthe information stored in the database.Why Do I Want To Do This?-------------------------There are many reasons to use a database-driven contentmanagement system as opposed to many static webpages.
Severalare:1. Easier To Change Site DesignWith a database-driven site, there is really only one webpage.The content of the site is inserted into this page dynamicallywhen it is requested based on information passed to the page(such as the article number).This means changing the look of the entire site can be as easyas changing the HTML in that one page.
The page would containboth HTML and programming code for whatever language you chose.2. Easier To Update Your SiteUsing a database-driven content system, you no longer have tocreate a separate webpage for each piece of content you wanton your site.
By setting up a form which submits information toadd to your database, you can update the site just by copying andpasting a piece of content into the form, and adding it to thedatabase. If you write the site to take articles based on date,for example, the new content could appear immediately on yoursite.How Do I Create a Content Management System?--------------------------------------------Here are several places you can learn about building a database-driven website, specifically with PHP and mySQL:1.
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/programming/php/WebMonkey's PHP Programming section has many well-writtenarticles and tutorials dealing with both PHP programming andinteracting with mySQL. They even have a "PHP/mySQL Tutorial."2.
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/backend/databases/WebMonkey's Backend Databases section includes information aboutchoosing a database system, an introduction to databases,several tutorials and more.3. http://wdvl.com/Authoring/Languages/PHP/The Web Developer's Virtual Library has several good tutorialsand information about the PHP language and how to use it inconjunction with mySQL databases.There are many uses of databases in websites, and a contentmanagement system is just one of them.
Hopefully this articlehas informed you on exactly what a database is and has providedyou with several links to good starting points for those whoare interested in using a database in their site. Article Tags: Content Management System, Management System, Content Management Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .