So part of my senior project I need to write a program or "script" that relates to learning something new in IT and is a major part of my grade. I need to write a program and I'm developing a website to provide a service (can't really go into it I hope you understand). Anyway I am or need to write a php program that has a user selectable menu and the menu will have the names of categories in a directory listing or a choice for all of them. There are 20 some category listings. After this is chosen I need to tell the program, from another drop down list, pick a table in an sql database. All the tables have a different prefix but the last part is the same for each prefix. Then there needs to be a search box where I can enter and search for a piece of code or word or phrase like find in ie does. Before you submit the form there is a check box for displaying the tables that do or do not have what is entered in the search box thing. After it is done searching it needs to output the tables that it has or hasn't found, what you told it to, to the user.

Now my question is how hard would it be to write this and for me not knowing anything really about php at this point how long will it take me to learn how to do this? Is there specific sections or web pages that outline what I'm trying to do and sort of help me through each part?

If you're comfortable with C or C++ and know one other scripting language (something like Perl or ASP) the adjustment shouldn't be too hard. I'd go out and grab a book on PHP to get you started because there are some style things you should know about but overall I'd say it's very doable.

The first thing you need to do is not obfuscate your program ... "does this that when this that" ... I lost what your program is supposed to do after the "Then there needs to be....".

Anyhow ... let me try and de-code your description.

What you want is a program that given a category and its associated tables, runs a user defined search on it and displays the results. Does that cover what you want done?

If so, then your answers are in the many tutorial sites (http://www.google.com/search?q=php+database+tutorials) and the excellent php (http://www.php.net/manual) and mysql (http://www.mysql.com/manual) manuals.

PHP is not difficult to learn, especially if you have any programming background (PERL, C++, especially useful).

Good luck.

Originally posted by fyrestrtr
The first thing you need to do is not obfuscate your program ... "does this that when this that" ... I lost what your program is supposed to do after the "Then there needs to be....".

Anyhow ... let me try and de-code your description.

What you want is a program that given a category and its associated tables, runs a user defined search on it and displays the results. Does that cover what you want done?

If so, then your answers are in the many tutorial sites (http://www.google.com/search?q=php+database+tutorials) and the excellent php (http://www.php.net/manual) and mysql (http://www.mysql.com/manual) manuals.

PHP is not difficult to learn, especially if you have any programming background (PERL, C++, especially useful).

Good luck.

yeah sorry basically they pick a directory catagory from a drop down list then pick a table in the sql database to search and then enter the text to search for and it displays the results.

You need to know some basics about PHP and mySQL before you write this project

Buy a PHP books and learn from the examples provided there.

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