Head First PHP & MySQL

Chapter 9. Control your Data, Control your World: Harvesting data

There’s nothing like a good fall data harvest. An abundance of information ready to be examined, sorted, compared, combined, and generally made to do whatever it is your killer web app needs it to do. Fulfilling? Yes. But like real harvesting, taking control of data in a MySQL database requires some hard work and a fair amount of expertise. Web users demand more than tired old wilted data that’s dull and unengaging. They want data that enriches... data that fulfills... data that’s relevant. So what are you waiting for? Fire up your MySQL tractor and get to work!

Making the perfect mismatch

The Mismatch application has a growing database of registered users but they’re ready to see some results. We need to allow users to find their ideal opposite by comparing their loves and hates against other users and looking for mismatches. For every love mismatched against a hate, a couple is that much closer to being the perfect mismatch.

Mismatching is all about the data

In order to carry out Mismatches between users, we must first figure out how to organize the data that keeps up with what they love and hate. Knowing that it’s going to be stored in a MySQL database isn’t enough. We need to organize these love/hate topics so that they ...