I'm trying to make my first content management system and am wrestling with a problem that seems to be about equal parts PHP, Apache mod_rewrite and MySQL. I wondered if anyone on this list can suggest a MySQL solution - or partial solution.
I'm dealing with a single database table named gzanimals that lists animal taxons (orders, families, species, etc.) in a child-parent relationship (with fields named "Name" and "Parent". For example: NAME | PARENT Animalia | (NULL) Mammalia | Animalia Carnivora | Mammalia Felidae | Carnivora Panthera | Felidae leo | Panthera The code above illustrates the taxonomic hierarchy linking the lion (Panthera leo) to the animal kingdom (Animalia). With Apache mod_rewrite, my URL's look like this: www.geozoo.org/stacks/Animalia www.geozoo.org/stacks/Mammalia www.geozoo.org/stacks/Carnivora www.geozoo.org/stacks/Felidae www.geozoo.org/stacks/Panthera www.geozoo.org/stacks/leo There are two problems with this strategy: 1. Some species names are shared by more than one mammal. For example, there's a marsupial named Antechinus leo. 2. Species are more properly cited with the name of their parent (genus), so I eventually want my species URL's to look like this: www.geozoo.org/stacks/Panthera_leo * * * * * I can manipulate my PHP script and mod_rewrite to draw from two fields and display Panthera_leo instead of leo. The problem is that I more or less lose contact with my database; it recognizes leo as a row identifier, while Panthera_leo is an unknown. * * * * * You can see a good example of what I'm trying to do at http://www.geozoo.org/stacks/Carnivora Two separate scripts drive the bread crumbs-style links at the top of the page and the list of "children" (carnivore families, in this case) in the column on the right. If you click Felidae, the children change to a list of genera that belong to the family Felidae. Click Panthera - http://www.geozoo.org/stacks/Panthera - and the children change to species that belong to the genus Panthera. As you can see, I've modified these so they display the genus (parent) + species (child) name, both physically and in the link. However, they are nonfunctioning, as I haven't yet figured out how to to deal with the space between the two values. * * * * * At this point, I'm thoroughly confused, especially since fixes often require tweakingn two or more things simultaneously - PHP, mod_rewrite and MySQL. But one thing I haven't experimented with yet is combined fields. I created a key on two fields - Name and Parent - and it NameDual. Is there a way to connect with NameDual in a PHP script, or is it something that only exists in my database? For example, I thought I might change... $taxon = mysql_query ("SELECT Name, NameCommon, Parent FROM gzanimals AS GZA WHERE Parent = '$_GET[taxon]'"); to... $taxon = mysql_query ("SELECT NameDual, Name, NameCommon, Parent FROM gzanimals AS GZA WHERE Parent = '$_GET[taxon]'"); ...except it didn't work. Is there a way to do this, or can you see any other MySQL solutions to my problem? Thanks. ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
