windandwaves wrote:
Hi Jerry
Thank you for your reply.
It is a SQL server on their company server. We dont want to talk to it
directly because of security issues. The database is updated daily most
of the time, with some specials going live almost instantly.
Your questions are actually really useful, because they give me more
confidence that I am on the right track.
What else do you like to know?
Thank you
Nicolaas
Nicolaas,
Sorry for the delay; I've been musing on your questions, thinking of the various
options. And I wouldn't necessarily say you're asking the right questions based
on what I asked! :-)
You indicate it's a SQL server. But there are several of them around there,
such as Microsoft's SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, MySQL, Postgres and many others.
What you need to do is going to be based the options available to you - and that
depends on the server.
I can understand the security issues - but many SQL database servers can handle
that. For instance, you can limit external connections to originating from one
IP address only (your web server), and further isolate that to only allow SELECT
requests on specific tables and/or views.
Or if the database supports replication, you can have all or part of it
replicated to another server.
But if they are limiting access to the company database due to security issues,
then you won't be able to suck the data from the database. The transfer will
need to be initiated by the server. Same with an ODBC connection to the server.
IOW, you're going to need to work with the DBA on the server end to discuss your
options and how he wants to allow you to handle it.
And I would suggest you then ask in a newsgroup specific to that database;
you'll get better answers on questions like this, because it really isn't a PHP
question - it's database-related.
And BTW - I typically do not use ODBC for something like this, if there is a
database-specific interface available. ODBC is great for when you don't have a
specific database in mind or it's one PHP can't talk to directly. But being
general-purpose, it will have higher overhead because it has to first translate
your calls to database-specific ones, then call the database. And you won't be
able to make use of features specific to your database.
In your case, you know what database you'll be working with, and if the
interface does exist you can make better use of your database.
Hope this helps.
--
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Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
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