Chapter23.A Database Primer
Chapter 23. A Database PrimerIN THIS CHAPTER
As you begin to build dynamic web applications using Dreamweaver, it will become increasingly obvious that you'll need to store data in some sort of storage mechanism and allow its access through your web application. Whether you are building a small, company-wide Intranet store with access limited to employees or a feature-rich Internet web store that millions will visit, you will need some system for storing all the order, customer, cost, and product information. You might not want to stop there however, you might want to include some way of tracking how many of a certain item you have left in your inventory. You might even need to determine how many items are selling during a particular week of the month. If that's the case, you will need some way of determining sales transactions. Like a filing cabinet that stores files and, subsequently, data within those files, you will need some mechanism of storing all your data for easy access and quick retrieval. That mechanism is the database. In this chapter, we'll demystify databases. We'll cover basic database concepts such as tables, columns, and rows, advanced concepts such as stored procedures, views and queries, security, relationships, and keys. Then we'll talk about the three databases covered in this book: Access, MSDE, and MySQL. We'll dissect their installation, configuration, and provide an overview of the database management systems exposed by each. Armed with that knowledge, we'll last provide a high-level overview of the Dorknozzle database and its tables. As you've done for the rest of the chapters in this book, you can work with the examples in this chapter by downloading the files from www.dreamweaverunleashed.com. As you'll see throughout the chapter, the downloadable files include complete versions of the databases used in this chapter. |
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 237