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Number of Fields

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Number of Fields
I want to build a database of hotels and I need a very large number of fields for each entry. I am looking at hundreds of fields that allow users to enter every last detail about their hotel. Is DBMan capable of doing this?
What problems may I encounter??
Any advise welcomed.
Thank you.
Simon.

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I think DBMan would be able to handle your database.

There are ways to cut down on the amount of fields needed by creating select fields. That way each and every option would not necessarily need it's own field in some cases.

You could also look into using the relational mod and using a few databases working together.

Did you by any chance search for "hotel" to see if you could find other posts relating to this type of database. You might find some good ideas.

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There seems to be a limit to the number of fields that can be displayed on a page at one time. I was setting up a database for someone who had more than 200 fields, but after about 150 fields, everything crashed. It's not a limitation of DBMan, but something either with browsers or the way CGI works in general.

JPD
http://www.jpdeni.com/dbman/
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Re: Number of Fields In reply to
I guess the problem is only displaying the input page to the user and not actually reading and displaying the result.
If this is the case, would it be possible to break the users input page into 4 or 5 pages that somehow submit the users information to the database as one entry? Has this been done?
Am I right in assuming that once the information is stored in the database file that viewing it wouldn't be a problem?
I really need to get this going with hundreds of user fields.
Thanks for your advise.
Simon.

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Re: Number of Fields In reply to
Since nothing is "remembered" from one running of the script to the next, nothing can be kept in memory.

There are three ways you could break up the forms into several pages.

1--On the second and following pages, have hidden fields which contain the values from all previous pages.

2--Create intermediate files as you go along. That is, as each page is filled out, save a temporary file with the information from that page and then when the last page is filled out, pull the data from the temporary files and add all the information at once to the database.

3--Create a separate, linked database for each page of information.

Actually, the second one sounds like it probably would be the best choice.

However, the problem comes in with the size of the database. Remember that performance in the non-SQL DBMan begins to degrade after the .db file reaches 1M in size. If you have hundreds of fields, it wouldn't take very many records to make a 1M file.

JPD
http://www.jpdeni.com/dbman/
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Re: Number of Fields In reply to
Thanks JPD,
Your No.2 idea sounds best to me too.
Is there any kind of existing modification that I could use? Or can you suggest where I start? I am prepared to put the time in to get this set up but I'm just not sure where to start. I am good at modifying existing perl script but I not too confident at starting from scratch.
Also, If I set this up using DBMan will I have trouble when I upgrade to SQL?

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Re: Number of Fields In reply to
I have only started working with DBMan-SQL. You shouldn't have much trouble transferring things, though, as long as you don't use too many modifications. Any modifications that you add can be transferred directly, except those that directly access the files. Those will have to be changed, and I don't have the changes as yet.

You will be able to transfer your database files by using the MySQLMan script that is available at Gossamer Threads for free. There is a function which allows you to import delimited files into an SQL database.

As for saving the files to temporary storage, I'm going to need to think about it for a little while. I know it can be done, but the process is not quite clear to me as yet. Smile


JPD
http://www.jpdeni.com/dbman/
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Re: Number of Fields In reply to
I'll try a few things myself and get you to take a look at it later. If you come up with any ideas please let me know.
Thanks
Simon.

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Re: Number of Fields In reply to
I have a database running for a large survey.
The database has 115 fields, although most of them are multiple choice so most end up with only 1 character in them.

However, I too had the same problem when displaying too much data at the one time. Though it wasn't a problem with DBMan, rather the browser.
(namely Netscape)

Netscape has this odd bug, it can't handle a TABLE with 100+ rows.
(my data was originaly all layed out in a single TABLE)

It was a simple fix, breaking up the data into a new table after 50 questions or so.
It might not be the solution here, but it's just a thought.

- Mark

Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/