Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

Chapter 25. Web Pages that Manipulate Database Records

Displaying database information on a web page is useful, but you may be more interested in the opposite kind of communication—collecting information from your site’s visitors (see Figure 25-1). Maybe you want them to do something as simple as register with your site. Other times, you may have something more ambitious in mind—like accepting and processing product orders using a full-fledged e-commerce system.

Both of these kinds of transactions require that you have some way to change the information stored in your databae—to add a new visitor’s user name and password in the former case and to add or delete products and change prices in the latter. In short, once you have data in a database, you need a way to maintain it—to update and delete information. After all, you’ll change prices, discontinue products, and remove any record of “Harvey the Wise Guy” from your site’s online guestbook. Thankfully, Dreamweaver makes changing information in a database simple and painless.

Note

You may feel more comfortable learning these concepts by doing them. If so, turn to the tutorial on Tutorial: Inserting and Updating Data before you read the next section.