Web Programming: Daffodil DB: Web Database

Summary : In web databases, modifications, like those constantly required by E-commerce sites, for example, can be performed easily. This makes the dense editing of the html code obsolete, freeing E-commerce sites to focus on the business at hand.

What is a Web Database?

A web database is created for use on the Internet. You can access your data via the Internet from anywhere in the world, or create a database-driven website. A web database stores large amount of information in an organized format easily accessible from scripting languages (like PHP).

In web databases, modifications, like those constantly required by E-commerce sites, for example, can be performed easily. This makes the dense editing of the html code obsolete, freeing E-commerce sites to focus on the business at hand. 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 environments include Windows, Linux, Solaris and UNIX. With the help of Daffodil DB, web 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) executes before sending those pages to the requesting browser.

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 web developers can focus on the logic of programming without wasting precious wen development time.

PHP as a language has its own way of doing things, and at the same time, has borrowed features from other languages. For many people, though, the main reason for learning a scripting language like PHP is 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, and Daffodil DB is platform independent. PHP is free; so is Daffodil DB (open source version). PHP is open source and 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 rely upon 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 applications, there are some more areas where users can use Daffodil DB-PHP 'dynamic-duo'.

• Optimize the loading time of the website
• Build an E-commerce 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

About the author : Parveen Aggarwal, is a Technical Consultant to DSL India.