MySQL Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Introduction

This chapter and the next few discuss some of the ways that MySQL can help you build a better web site. One significant benefit is that MySQL enables you to create a more interactive site because it becomes easier to provide dynamic content rather than static content. Static content exists as pages in the web server’s document tree that are served exactly as is. Visitors can access only the documents that you place in the tree, and changes occur only when you add, modify, or delete those documents. By contrast, dynamic content is created on demand. Rather than opening a file and serving its contents directly to the client, the web server executes a script that generates the page and sends the resulting output. For example, a script can process a keyword request and return a page that lists items in a catalog that match the keyword. Each time a keyword is submitted, the script produces a result appropriate for the request. And that’s just for starters; web scripts have access to the power of the programming language in which they’re written, so the actions that they perform to generate pages can be quite extensive. For example, web scripts are important for form processing, and a single script may be responsible for generating a form and sending it to the user, processing the contents of the form when the user submits it later, and storing the contents in a database. By operating this way, web scripts interact with users of your web site and tailor the information provided ...