PHP, MySQL, & JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 4

Using the Database

IN THIS CHAPTER

Adding new data to your tables

Updating existing data in your tables

Finding data quickly

Working with backups and restores

The preceding chapter covers how to create databases and tables for your dynamic web application. That’s all well and good, but databases and tables don’t really do anything until you start placing data in them.

This chapter explores the different methods you have available for adding, changing, and removing data in your application tables. After that, it walks through possibly the most important feature of any database: how to quickly retrieve the data that your application needs. The chapter closes by discussing the important jobs of backing up and restoring database data.

Working with Data

The ability to easily manage application data is the whole reason dynamic web applications use databases. So it stands to reason that the SQL language has quite a few options for working with data. There are four basic functions that we need to do with the data in our application:

• Add new data records to tables.
• Modify existing ...