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View Full Version : Accessing database information to fill webpage requests



ugaskidawg
16 Nov 2010, 02:27 PM
This is my first post, so first off, my web design skills are outdated. I used to do a lot of design and programming in the 1990's and early 2000's, but then got out of the field and haven't touched it since. I have experience with html, cgi/perl, some java, but nothing else. The purpose of my question below is to make some recommendations to a webmaster that said that he has been having difficulty devising a way to address this particular problem.

I am wanting to think of a way to access information in a database to fill out a user submitted request. In this example, it is for a tournament fishing website. I want there to be a page that one can go to and type in the name of an angler and it pulls up the results of all tournaments they have competed in. There is a website that has a good functioning one found here:

http://www.flwoutdoors.com/ap/index.cfm?type=bass

The above webpage is used to search for anglers that fish in a individual/independent tournament format. The problem that I am encountering is how to do it with anglers that fish as a two person team. The main problem with this team idea is that these teams may change from year to year because the anglers decide to change partners...so I don't want to have to setup a search field to search just for one team's results, rather one angler and all the teams they have ever been apart of. It would spit out results for each year and in the results table it would list: the date, the name of the angler, the name of the partner, the name of the lake, the total weight, their final place and all money earned.

As an example, in that webpage above, search for "David Dudley." Once the list of David Dudleys appear, click on the one listed as David P. Dudley from Lynchburg, VA. This will provide you with what I am looking to get (just adding in the idea that if he were on a team, rather than fishing individually, it would also display his partners name throughout the various tournaments).

Because these teams may change from year to year, would you have to enter two entries into the database for each time a team finishes a tournament (one with one of the anglers listed first, and the other entry with the other angler listed first...if that makes sense).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am mearly a consumer who would like to see a more interactive website for its visitors. Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this!