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Experienced newbie humbly requests asssistance...

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 11:57 am
by richardinthemoment
Hello there...

I am creating a database with the following three tables:

One: Categories (Id, CatName)
Two: Subcategories (ID, ParentID, SubCatName)
Three: Articles (CatName, SubCatName, ArtName, ArticleURL)

As I ask these questions, note that I am not new to technology (I’ve worked with Access/ASP) but I am a brand newbie to MySql/PHP. (I know how to create the dbase connections, the dbase, statically add data to the database, and create a form.)

What is the best way to create the ParentID for the subcategories field. Is it just a plain numeric field or do I need to reference the Categories database somehow (same question applies for CatName and SubCatName in the Articles database)?

Tables 1 and 2 will be relatively static. Table 3 will be updated by an online form. How do I create this form so that I will have dropdown lists for the category and subcategory choice and then submit this information back to the table articles in the database?

I have done about 3 hours of online research but everyone seems to have a slightly different method. Thanks in advance for your help,
Richard


Note: I would prefer not to use the javascript option for the dropdowns in case people don’t have javascript enabled. Thanks again, Richard

One last note: It is possible that a category might not have any subcategories….
Thanks,
Richard

Re: Experienced newbie humbly requests asssistance...

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 1:21 pm
by AXEmonster
have you setup your table id's as auto-increments

Re: Experienced newbie humbly requests asssistance...

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 1:25 pm
by AXEmonster
have you setup your table id's as auto-increments

Re: Experienced newbie humbly requests asssistance...

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 6:27 pm
by richardinthemoment
Yes, table IDs are auto increment...