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Where to start with MySQL and PHP

J

jst0ney

Platinum Member
I have recently taken up the project of creating a website. Its a Seattle Mariners fan site. I am using moveabletype just because it was easy to get me started. I consider my self an advanced newbie. That is to say that I understand some aspects of computing rather well but others not at all. General Programming is one of the things that I have no clue about.

I want to be able to put current stats on my webpage. I have found a service that will let me DL daily updated league stats in XML. I want to be able to program scripts into my page that will query a MySQL database. I don't even know if what I am asking for makes any sense but please bear with me. I am willing to put time into this project and I am not looking for a quick fix (read, I want to learn). I believe that I will need to understand MySQL and PHP possibly perl to do this. Am I right? Where is a good place to start? Any good books? I've heard nothing but good things about O?Reilly books but I wonder if they are too advanced for me to start with.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.
 
I'd say get the php manual from php.net (the cfm if possible) its been invaluable to me for coding reference. Its also been updated with some great snippets of code that people have posted over the years
 
This book is a good start.

Could you outline your project a bit more?

You use XML to pull the current stats; what do you do with them from there? Why do you need MySQL as an intermediary step -- why not just use a php soap repository?

First outline exactly what you want the different aspects of your projects to do -- for example:

The database stores ___________ and manages ____________ (user logins? simple information?).
The php script retrieves that information and displays it in ________ format.

That sort of thing.

Rob
 
As a person who is also currently reading up on some php and mySQL, I would definitely suggest a book if you are serious about learning. I bought the php Bible from Amazon for $35, and the mySQL Bible for $13 (was on sale a month ago, helluva deal for the how-to Bible series of books). Both books were excellent, but I eventually quit reading the php book when I found out one thing: Anything you could possibly want in a php script you can find at http://www.hotscripts.com. Why write the code yourself? I have taught myself how to edit the scripts to take advantage of personal databases and such, and am very happy with my php knowledge at this point.
 
Thanks for your help. I'm on my way to BandN to get some books right now. It may take me a couple of months but I'll update this thread if I make any progress.

Thanks again.
 
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