> I would have thought a php appliction would be able to this fairly > easily. My data entry scripts insert the new records with just a primary > key, then iterate through the various fields using an update sql for each > one which is not null.
A generalized program to do this for (nearly) any table is not a trivial task. For a start you have to deal with knowing the difference between an insert and an update, perhaps provide some kind of record-locking scheme so it works in multi-user mode, do something about record keys (whether using OIDs or some other unique single field), and deal with quotes and other characters that cause problems for either web pages or SQL statements. Things like supporting a variety of search features, data type checking (eg, making sure that a date or an integer is valid BEFORE trying an insert/update), lookups on related data (for example, displaying the name from a customer record when the ID appears in an order record), user passwords, data access security levels, data formatting, etc. all add complexity. The main program I've been working on for about two years now is nearly 3200 lines long at this point. It has about 95% of the items on my original wish list of features. It's been in use at a client's office since March of 2004 and is used to maintain their database of over 600,000 members, among other things. Could I write separate PHP programs to handle each table? Yes, and in fact I've been doing that where I've needed to. But I can build a full-featured query tool (with search, insert, update and delete capabilities) for a new table in under 20 minutes, and it will have the same look and feel as a couple dozen other programs for other tables. That's saved me a BUNCH of time both in development and in training. -- Mike Nolan ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
