I think my question is more oriented towards PHP, but
I'd like to ask it on this list, as I suspect the
solution may involve MySQL.
I'm about to start developing an enormous database
focusing on the animal kingdom and want to find a key
system more user friendly than the traditional
scientific name.
So imagine instead a page with the following in the
head section:
$AnimalID = 'canlup';
This page displays information on the wolf, based on
the first three letters of its genus and species name,
Canis lupus.
Now imagine a page with this value:
$AnimalID = 'bal';
This page displays information on the whale family
Balaenidae. But what about the whale family
Balaenopteridae, which begins with the same three
letters?
I could solve this problem by adding a numerical key
to my database and displaying the following:
$AnimalID = 'bal23';
$AnimalID = 'bal24';
The problem with this is that it makes it much harder
to work with my data. When tweaking a page or writing
a script, I can easily remember that bal = Balaenidae,
but I can't possibly remember which numeral is
associated with each mammal family. Also, what happens
if I add or subtract rows from my database table, and
the above values suddenly change to bal27 and bal28?
So here's what I think I'd like to do:
$AnimalID = 'canlup1';
$AnimalID = 'bal1';
$AnimalID = 'bal2';
The page with canlup1 will display the FIRST (and
only) instance of canlup in the database - the wolf.
The page with bal1 will display the first instance of
bal, which will always be Balaenidae, whether the
absolute value is bal27 or bal2884. A page with bal2
will always display the next mammal family that begins
with bal, Balaenopteridae.
So I THINK all I need to do is create a variable that
reflects a particular value's ordinal position in a
database...
abc1
abc2
abc3, etc.
Plus, I'll have to join two or three fields together
to form a key; e.g. animals.species + animals.numerals
Does anyone know how I can do this? Thanks.
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