OK, so now what?

I am aware that perhaps what you have just done is the limit of your MySQL knowledge, so I will continue this document by creating a simple database of books, along with their prices, ISBN numbers and purchase dates, and then proceed to write a script in PHP3 that would access this database and use the retrieved information in a web page.

So what are the steps from creating a database to accessing it through a web page? Here is a list of steps needed to be taken;

1. Create the database with correct access privileges
2. Decide on all appropriate fields and types
3. Decide on an appropriate indexing system
4. Create the table containing all fields and an index if required
5. Insert the correct information in to the table
6. Query the database
7. Write a script to connect to the MySQL database server and to query it
8. Getting the database onto the server

As we have already covered the first step, lets go through the other steps one by one so hopefully by the time we have finished we will have a working web site that will query the server and display its findings on a web page, please note that in order for the script to actually work, it will need to be executed on an actual web server such as Apache, and will not work if opened in Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.

Just before we get started, I would like to say that for the following database and any that you create in the future I would highly recommend getting the MySQL manual from the MySQL home page, it will help lots in the creation of your table and in the querying of them also, I would also suggest getting the manual of which ever scripting language you decide to use also from their respective home pages, if you are using PHP then the home page is here

Anyway now that's been said lets get started shall we?