What is Database Publishing?

Database Publishing is the 'live' display of database records to a web page. As the database is updated, so is the requested web page. Application software such as Allaire's ColdFusion or Microsoft's Active Server Pages are used to link the database to web pages and provide advanced features which enable the production of fully fledged web applications.

Database Publishing Concepts

Irrespective of whether you choose to use ASP or Cold Fusion as your scripting language to access your database, the underlying principles are identical. As a basic non-specific example of the process, we will consider a simple database query operation.

An HTML form is used to allow the user to specify the criteria for the query. Our example will use the following simple form:

<FORM ACTION=myscript METHOD=POST>
Surname: <INPUT TYPE = "TEXT" NAME = "surname">
<INPUT TYPE = "SUBMIT" VALUE = "Enter">
</FORM>

This will display a text input box and a Submit button.When the user clicks the Submit button, the form variables are passed via a standard interface known as CGI (Common Gateway Interface) to whatever server script is specified in the action statement of the HTML form, in this case myscript. Note that in reality, the script name will actually have a file extension such as .asp or .cfm depending on which scripting language you are using.

Your server script can then use these variables to dynamically produce an SQL (Structured Query Language) query. As an example if the user entered the text SMITH in the surname field, a query such as:

SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE surname = 'formsurname'

might be resolved into:

SELECT * FROM members WHERE surname = 'Smith'.

(Note again that the exact syntax of the italicised words varies depending on which scripting language is used.)

This query is then executed and the resulting records are made available as query field variables, (one for each of the table columns returned in the query). These variables can be mixed with standard HTML to produce a result page . Each time you refer to a query field variable, it is automatically expanded into one entry for each record returned by the query.

Returning to our simple example, some scripting language code such as :

<H2>Results of query for Surname=formsurname</H2>

<B>Firstname Surname</B> firstname surname<BR>

might generate the following HTML code:

<H2>Results of query for Surname=Smith</H2>

<B>Firstname Surname</B> Joe Smith<BR> Bert Smith<BR> Jean Smith<BR>

By extending the process to include insert and update SQL queries, the same concepts can be used to develop full-scale Intranet Applications.

Database Publishing and Dynamic Web Pages

Database publishing can range from allowing simple queries to be made on a database to producing fully fledged add-edit-delete online applications.

In order for you to make your database available on the Internet, we will publish it on one of our Web Servers as an ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) datasource. After that, you can use a number of products to query and update the data via a Web Client. Although all of these work in a similar manner, your previous knowledge and the nature of the task will determine which is most suitable. In addition to their ability to query and update databases, these products incorporate programming / scripting languages which allow you to perform dynamic operations such as processing HTML form data, writing to files, sending email messages etc.

Allaire Cold Fusion

Allaire's Cold Fusion is a Database Manipulation Language which can be used to query databases such as Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQLServer, Oracle or even Excel tables and Text files. It is effectively a superset of the HTML markup language used to create Web pages, whereby programming constructs such as SQL queries, variables, looping and branching statements are added via HTML-style markup tags.

Its similarity to the HTML markup language means that it is suitable for anyone who is familiar with the creating Web pages in HTML.

Allaire Information about Cold Fusion, we are an Allaire Partner

Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP)

The Microsoft solution for internet database access and the creation of dynamic page content is Active Server Pages. Unlike Cold Fusion which provides extensions to the HTML markup language, ASP adopts a different approach whereby Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual C++ code is embedded within an HTML document. Hence, it is best suited to those having a background in programming in these languages.

For further information, check out the example programs or the online Tutorial and Reference Manual. Note that although these can be viewed using the Netscape Browser, best results will be obtained with the Microsoft Internet Explorer Browser.

Microsoft Frontpage 98 users may be interested to know that the Frontpage Database Region Wizard actually generates ASP code which can often be used as a basis for further development.

Microsoft Information about Active Server Pages we are a Microsoft Partner

Microsoft Internet Database Connector (IDC)

IDC provides a very basic mechanism to query or update a database from a Web client and to return the results via an HTML page. Due to the fact that it does not support any programming constructs, and hence does not allow you to provide user-friendly error messages or to add intelligent program flow it has been superseded by ASP. We do however still maintain support for it as a number of our customers who use Microsoft Frontpage 97 find it useful for implementing simple database queries. For an example of how to use IDC via Frontpage 97, see the IDC Sample Web Tutorial.

What Version of MDAC Do You Use?

Review Date: 1/7/2000