Re: Creating Dynamic URLs

OK, I am now fairly thoroughly confused. What I am asking is for a way
to have a page which can display information from a database filtered
and/or sorted based on arguments supplied by the user in the URL. I
wish I could explain it better, but that's the best way I know how.
Anything else that I need to know, I suppose I can figure out later.
Right now, I'm just trying to get the sorting/filtering down.

On Oct 8, 11:19 am, "Ron Barnett" <ron.REM...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Colin Fine" <n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:egalj3$lfp$1$8302bc10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

jflash wrote:

On Oct 7, 11:11 am, usenet+2...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

jflash:
I am wanting to set my site up using dynamic urlsWhy?
At least you are thinking about URL design before publishing your
pages: that puts you ahead of the masses. Retrospective URL design
is, in a word, iffy.
(I'm assuming that's what they're called, an example of what
I have in mind is index.php?page=[pagename]).'Dynamic URL' is a
misleading though common term for URLs with query
parts. Misleading because there is nothing dynamic about URLs. That
example, we can say, is a relative reference consisting of a path and a
query part (square brackets aren't allowed in query parts). Nothing
more. What the server does with that URL is up to you, but the URL,
the string of characters, is not dynamic.
Couple of points on your example:
1. "Indexes" rarely are indexes. Are you sure there isn't a better
name? No name, even?
2. URL suffixes, unless you see the URL as pointing to a particular
representation of the resource, serve no purpose. It is generally of
no consequence to users whether you use PHP or some other language to
create your pages.
However, I can not figure out how to do this.I think another poster
has suggested one way.
I will eventually want to use SEF urls,I can guess what you mean by
that, but again I think the term is
misleading.
--
Jock

I forgot to mention one thing: how can I use this setup to call
information from a database. For example, I've seen this done where the
search query from a search on a site is entered into the URL and is
then searched for in the database. HOw, then, is this done if all of
the 'redirects' (for lack of a better word) have to be predefined?

On Oct 7, 5:10 pm, "jflash" <ki4...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ron: I assume that I simply add that code to my 'initial' page
(index.php in the example I started with). However, I am curious how I
define a default page to load (i.e. in my index.php example, how would
I specify what page to include/what content to display in the event
that no parameters are entered)? Also, do I have to manually add each
page for the parameter to include in the file, or is there some way
that I can use a database for the list of parameters and their
corresponding pages?

Jock:

1. I had originally thought I could use dynamic URLs to pull content
from a database and display it on a page based on the parameters
defined in the URL. In any case, I hope that using the dynamic URLs
will make it easier for my users, particularly once I get search-engine
friendly URLs set up.

2. Actually, I already have a version of my site up, I mainly am doing
this because I am dooing a major overhaul for various other reasons,
and since I have been wanting to implement this for a while now, it
seems like a good time to do it.

3.1. I don't get what you're saying. I wasn't planning on using
index.php as the base file name, I just used it for an example.
Actually, now that you say it, I'm thinking I might use the 'index.php'
part of the URL to serve as a category, then define the specific page
later. I don't know, I'll decide that later.
3.2. I'm just using PHP because I know for a fact my server supports
it, and I see no reason to try anythign else and risk a lack of support
on the server end of things.

Thanks for the help!

[Top posting fixed]

I don't fully understand what you are asking, but it seems to me that you
have an imperfect understanding of how CGI works.

A CGI script (such as a PHP program on a website) is a program that
generates as output the HTML that the web server will send to the browser.

Usually, the script takes arguments from the URL (usually the part after
the '?') to decide what to display, and very often it will obtain some of
the data on the page from a database.

Often, the script is capable of producing utterly different pages
depending on the input: for example, many CGI scripts display information
relating to a particular key in the database (a particular site, person,
company, date or whatever) and if called without the key will display a
different page that asks the user to specify the key. Then the 'Submit'
from that will go to the *same* script, but this time with the data it
needs.

If the URL has no CGI arguments, the program must cope with that case and
do something appropriate, for example request the information intneeds as
in the previous paragraph.

If you want not just to generate distinct pages, but to go to different
existing pages, you can do it by generating a HTTP header that redirects
to the appropriate page.

Does this help, or have I misunderstood your issue?

ColinHi Jock,

The explanation Colin has given is absolutely correct but I suspect you are
still floundering ?

referring back the code example I gave

$page = $_REQUEST['page'];
if ($page == 'pageone') include './lib/pageone.php';

This needs to be inserted as you guessed in index.php
calling index.php with a parameter 'page' i.e. //index.php?page=something
will cause the $_REQUEST array to contain an element 'page' with a value
'something'
having extracted the key / value pair from the array it as in the example
you can do whatever you like with the 'something' - you can simply haul in
another static page, or call a routine that uses 'something' as the key to
extract data from a database.
the absence of a parameter is simply the default call for the page
index.php, so I would assume that it was a screen with some data entry that
would then be used in a subsequent call. - All this is simple HTML / HTTP
and not really PHP at all.

Cheers

Ron

.

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