What is a Web Database?

A web database is a database for the internet. You can get access to your data via the internet from anywhere in the world. Or, you can create a database driven website by using such databases. A web database stores large amount of information in an organized format that is easily accessible from scripting languages (like PHP).

In web databases, modifications, like the ones constantly used by e-commerce sites, for example, can be performed without any hassles .That makes the dense editing of the html code obsolete. Repeated types of data, like contact information, can be generated automatically in your website through a web database.

Daffodil DB: A web database

Daffodil DB is a J2EE-certified, SQL-99 and JDBC standards compliant Java RDBMS. It is the first java database which is compatible with PHP. With the release of PHP extension module, Daffodil DB has joined the select list of Java enabled web databases.

Daffodil DB is an ideal for anyone who is looking for a web database. It can be embedded within any application and delivers high performance with minimum system resource usage - thereby striking the right balance between size, features and performance. At less than 3 MB, Daffodil DB is a small/compact database.

Daffodil DB can run on virtually any platform as it supports all platforms for which a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is available. These include Windows, Linux, Solaris and UNIX. With the help of Daffodil DB, developers can build applications for any platform and these can be compiled and delivered on all other major platforms.

PHP

PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open source server-side scripting language that is particularly suited for web development and can be used to generate dynamic web content.

PHP scripts are embedded within web pages along with HTML, similar to other web scripting languages such as Microsoft's ASP or Sun Microsystems's JSP. Like ASP and JSP, PHP runs on the web server when a page is requested via HTTP, rather than on the Web browser or other client.

PHP lets you insert instructions into your Web pages that your Web server software (be it Apache, Personal Web Server, or whatever) will execute before sending those pages to a browser that requests them.

PHP is easy to use for web development because it has been designed from the onset for the web environment. PHP has many built-in functions that make web programming simpler, so that programmers can focus on the logic of programming without wasting precious development time.

PHP as a language has its own way of doing things, and at the same time, has borrowed features from other languages. But for many people, the main reason for learning a scripting language like PHP is because of the interaction with databases it can offer. Moreover, PHP is cross platform i.e. it allows you to use/develop your solution on multiple OSs.

PHP is one of the fastest growing server side scripting languages around and you need to add it to your current arsenal of Perl, ASP, JSP, JavaScript, VBScript, Java...

PHP and Daffodil DB: Together... ?

Daffodil has come up with a PHP extension module that makes Daffodil DB/One$DB compatible with PHP. It is a database extension module driver that is required to work with Daffodil DB in PHP. This extension module uses the capabilities of a Java database and extends it to your web infrastructure.

By using this extensive module, PHP developers can create sophisticated data-driven web applications, having Daffodil DB as a web database, in a fraction of the time and with reduced cost.

PHP extension for Daffodil DB provides a simple, yet effective means for connecting to Daffodil DB from within PHP. The JVM is created using JNI invocation interface and everything runs in-process.

This PHP Extension module will boost open Source activities around Daffodil DB. Moreover, open Source stack -Linux, Apache, One$DB, and PHP; all being open source products, will give an ultimate combination to web development community.

PHP is platform independent, Daffodil DB is platform independent. PHP is free; so as Daffodil DB (open source version).PHP is open source; Daffodil DB has an open source version. So What about using the powers of two most promising technologies, PHP and Daffodil DB, together... ?

The capabilities of Daffodil DB & PHP can make up what must be the best blend for data-driven Web sites on the globe.

Users can use PHP and the Daffodil DB database to access/store information on the web and include it into their website. By using PHP as a front-end and Daffodil DB as a back-end web database, users can benefit from huge savings on the licensing costs of commercial alternatives.

Here are some practical examples where PHP and Daffodil DB, used together, can do wonders

Designing a database driven website

Add, edit & delete Web site content without using HTML

Banner Rotation

Forums Apart from all above mentioned applications, there are some more areas where users can use Daffodil DB-PHP 'dynamic-duo'.

Optimize the loading time of the website

Build an ecommerce shopping cart

Automatically send email on triggered events

Handle file uploads using HTML forms

Build a Web-based file repository or photo gallery

Utilize sessions and cookies to track site visitors

To know more about PHP visit http://www.php.net

For more information about Daffodil DB log on to http://www.daffodildb.com

Please log on to http://cvs.php.net/co.php/pecl/daffodildb for more information on PHP and Daffodil DB.

Read more: http://www.daffodildb.com/web-database.html

This article has been contributed by (Mr.) Parveen Aggarwal, Technical Consultant to DSL India (http://www.daffodildb.com). With more than 6 years of industry experience in Java and allied technologies, he has an in-depth understanding of J2EE, J2ME and database management systems. Parveen is currently working on the concept of data-archiving in embedded databases. He can be contacted at parveenaggarwal@hotmail.com