MySQl and PHP

:confused: Am a student about in Leeds. For my final project i have been assigned to creating a Web enabled database to create dynamic content on pages.

I have chosen to use MySql and PHP but i am an absolute beginner. I have a little experience in Oracle, but nothing to do with the setting up of the applications and hardware.

The assignment is basically to create a online database to which users have to register to become members of. Once they are registered they can upload details which will be displayed dynamically on web pages, this could include pictures. Users will have different access levels.

Could someone please give me some instructions on what i need to do and what is needed to to do it

Any help will be taken gratefully,

Also could anyone recommend a book, journals and websites that would aid me.

Many thanks Pete

For the book - try a search for "php" on amazon.com ( or amazon.co.uk ).

As for your project, here are some pointers:

1) The tricky thing with access control is session management. Unfortunately, php does not have a good history when it comes to security, but it has improved significantly over the last couple of years. Note that this could be an intense subject on it's own, depending on how secure your app must be. In the end it basically boils down to how you store the authentication credentials in cookies, and if/how you implement additional features like session time out etc.

2) In general your authentication table only holds the objects needed for authentication, and all other info are in a seperate table. This forces you to know something about JOIN's. There are plenty of good examples in the MySQL documentation ( www.mysql.com )

3) Pictures and other BLOB information can be handled in two ways: a) stored in the DB, or b) stored on the OS filesystem with a reference in the DB. For the sake of speed it is better to store the objects on disc, and just store the references in the DB.

4) The plot thickens, however, as you need to cater for an upload facility. There are two important things you should remember here: a) pay attention to size limits, and b) limit the image types ( gif, jpg, png etc. ).

The good thing about open source is that you can peek at how others have done it. Get a copy of phpNuke and have a look inside. That is sometimes the best way to learn. If you do use some of the code, you have to comply with the GPL though, so take note.

Cheers and good luck.

Hi there,

I have something similar to do...
A book I could recommend is "Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL" by Hugh E. Williams & David Lane.
Published at O'Reilly with ISBN:0-596-00041-3.
My problem is integrating barcode into the DB and build something like a warehaousing-system... it also has a userauthentication and cookie security features.

The book is not the best, but it helps at most of the topics. As the others I can always recommend the manual supplied with the MySQL distribution or available at www.mysql.com

A good way of dealing with specific problems is posting in boards like this.

I have found the book "MySQL" by Paul DuBois and published by New Riders to be very helpful on the database side of things and "PHP and MySQL Web Development" by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson published by Sams to be helpful on the scripting side of things - Chapter 14 deals exactly with what you're talking about.

Good luck.

You might also try PHPBuilder