Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition

By : David Mercer
Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition

By: David Mercer

Overview of this book

<p>The book can be read from front to back, but each chapter is self contained so the reader can skip chapters to read those that they are interested in. Each chapter will move from basic to advanced where applicable and also relate what the administrator (reader) is doing to how this affects what the client sees on the site.</p> <p>So, for example, the customization chapter will start off with a discussion on the concept of design and how to relate this to your business. Once the reader has a clear idea of what they need to do, we look at some really simple changes such as modifying the site's language, before moving to some advanced modifications which may involve some PHP programming. At the same time the discussion will demonstrate how the changes made affect the site.</p> <p>Throughout the book, much consideration is given to the "right" way to doing things. Readers will have the great advantage that they begin, from the very start, doing things properly. This will save them a lot of time and effort in the years to come as they build on and modify their site. Utilizing best practices and sound methodologies is a great asset for beginners and experienced users alike.</p> <p>At all times, the coverage given in this book pays homage to the fact that, ultimately, the reader has a business goal in mind. To this end, the material never gets bogged down in technical issues or long discourses, but rather focuses on what is practically important for the online business and then moves on. To complement this, there are plenty of suggestions and hints as to how and where to look for further information.</p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Foreword
Introduction
Index

Chapter 5. Working with Data

Data is the heart of any application that needs to retain or manipulate information in any way. How to go about storing information in a database is generally a cause of consternation for developers building applications from scratch. The problem, you see, is that unlike any other part of a program, which can generally be used with little to no modification for other applications, databases must be tailored precisely to their specific application in order to be effective. You don't need to worry about this though; it's all taken care of already.

As you know, osCommerce sites use the MySQL Relational Database Management System to store information about products, customers, sessions, languages, configuration, orders, reviews, specials, and a bunch of other things. The structure of the database is created and built during the installation process and is ready to work whenever you decide to make changes. In fact, we have already been working with data because the...