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Data-driven web sites

Week 5

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Current Practice

Combining web pages and data stored in a relational database is very widely used

Allows us much greater customisation of web page content

User data can be stored and effectively reused

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Strengths of databases

Databases offer efficient storage and retrieval of information

Easy and quick to search through large quantities of info to find specific records– “Find all the customers who bought a

red Mondeo this year” Let the database do the work

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Powerful features

Can optimise searching by building indexes

Can be very specific in search terms Database can automatically sort results Calculate totals and averages of data

retrieved Save you from having to write your own

code

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Common Setups

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ASP + Access

A popular cheap and cheerful setup Copy of MS Access database can be placed

on web server ASP Pages can store and retrieve data

using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) Low barriers to entry - just need MS Office Not suitable for large sites

– Access cannot support many users at once– Relatively slow

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LAMP

Free/Open Source web solution using:– Linux operating system– Apache web server– MySQL database– PHP/Perl/Python programming language

Widely deployed, powerful and low cost Often available from hosting companies

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.NET + MS SQL Server

High-end Microsoft solution Use .Net framework with VB or C# Make use of powerful MS SQL Server

database Not a free solution, but MS SQL is a

high-end database with sophisticated features

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Other options

Possible to link most programming langs with most databases

Possible to use Oracle, DB2, Postgres Generally have software functions to

connect to DB Can often port (rewrite) sites to use

new DB fairly easily

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Web Site Uses

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Form Filling

Many commercial sites rely on customers entering their details via forms

Can be used to make decisions– e.g. Insurance Quote

Often used as starting point in sales process - for later closure

Can even be a petition to Prime Minister

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Catalogue

eCommerce applications use a DB to store product information

Site visitors view pages with product lists (or details) retrieved from DB

Combine with form filling to build complete shopping cart app

Off-the-shelf implementations available

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Tracking Behaviour

Many sites track your behaviour without overtly using form filling or accounts

Flickr tracks photos which are popular or ignored to develop interestingness rating

Amazon matches your browsing history with similar users to make recommendations

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Search Engine

Highly specialised database application

Contains details of public sites Able to quickly match relevant sites

to search terms

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Content Management System

Modern trend in commercial sites Businesses buy a template based site Page contents are added as

database contents through forms Content is pulled from DB and placed

into templates when users visit

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Wikis and Blogs

Similar to CMS in many ways - database content presented via templates

Both rely on contributed content Blogs simply present user

contributions with the most recent entry first

Wikis allow users to alter the content of pages using simple rules

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.Net Toolkit

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Many alternatives

.Net allows several approaches Drag-and-drop tools Hand-coded database access Which to use varies on the situation

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Datagrid

Can present database search results as tabular data

Optional controls to allow editing Can add paging functions Tends to be the simplest view

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DataList

Can define a template view for multiple results

Useful in shopping cards Create formatting rules for data E.g. Grid of products

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FormView

Tabular layout showing a database field per row

Typically used for edit or insert operations

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SQL Details

Individual controls can be mapped to one or more queries

Often a SELECT Also add UPDATE, INSERT and

DELETE statements Can also tie a control to a Stored

Procedure