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Creating a Database for a Directory Site

Novice seeks advice.

TimmyMagic

3:58 pm on Jul 15, 2007 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Hi,

I want to start a new directory type website for my industry. This will contain a lot of listings and I was going to do this by adding them manually into a HTML table. However, I am thinking that this will be very time consuming, and surely there is a way of doing it with a database.

The listings will probably have the following fields:

Country, State, Town/City, Name, Description, Contact Info.

I don't know much about databases so am seeking some advice from the good folk here on webmasterworld.

I want to have a form on the website which enables people to add their listing. I'd like to know if it is possible to have it designed so that when someone submits the form, the information can be entered into the database without me having to manually type in all the fields? I wouldn't want it totally automatic, but to have some option where I approve the listing, be it ticking a box or whatever. And I'd like the content to be outputted in HTML, if possible.

I won't be doing the database myself, as I don't have the skills. I will get someone else to do it, but I wanted to know what is possible before posting a job for it.

Also, what is the best technology for this...MySQL? PHP?

Sorry if these are dumb questions and thanks in advance.

Tim

ariaby

8:37 pm on Jul 15, 2007 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

That would be very easy with PHP and MySQL, you need one table and PHP can automatically save the posted data by users to your database.
There should be a field named ‘approved’ in your table, so you can review the data and approve them before publishing them on your site

TimmyMagic

8:22 pm on Jul 16, 2007 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Thanks for the reply. Would this output to a HTML web page?

centime

2:56 pm on Jul 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Do yourself a favour and buy a ready made directory script, of which there are many.

The only reasons you'd code one yourself is if you wanna code for a living,

or

You really know what you're doing an want absolutely unique features no one else has

or

your're really big like,, botw :)

Jon_King

3:00 pm on Jul 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member

10+ Year Member

Buy a script, they are really inexpensive. You might play with one of the freebies out there first to get a feel for how they work...

The Contractor

3:32 pm on Jul 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member

10+ Year Member

As others stated, why reinvent the wheel. There is no way you could duplicate what's out there unless you are really good and your time is worth about .10 an hour. Besides, if you build it you may not see all the security/vulnerabilities until someone takes down your site and wipes it out...

aspdaddy

9:23 pm on Jul 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member

10+ Year Member

Well its just as risky using a ready made php script off the web, they are always being hacked - every one knows the vunerabilities, and you will still need a coder to customise it.

The Contractor

9:37 pm on Jul 17, 2007 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member

10+ Year Member

Well its just as risky using a ready made php script off the web, they are always being hacked - every one knows the vunerabilities, and you will still need a coder to customise it.

Not the one I would recommend (maybe some of the cheaper scripts out there). I have installed and/or worked on at least a couple hundred instances using a particular script and not one time when installed and setup properly have I ever seen (or heard of for that matter) it hacked. A good script should not need customization/features unless you are going well past the stages mentioned in the OP. You will need to know HTML as in building most websites.