Please help !!!

Currently my site (like the yellowpages but in local only) is in the process of programming using php and mysql. I would say it should be done within a week and will use about 3 weeks for testing. But more and more I realized that 2 levels of categories (top and sub) may not be enough for all businesses. Currently I am thinking to add one more level (top, sub, sub) For example: Health and Medical > Insurance > Dental in our database.

Here is my question:
1. Should I reprogram it before I import 200,000 business information database in it? Will it make a different in terms of hour of work and cost? I preferred to reprogram it in a year later but if it will create a lot of problem with a heavy database, then I will do it right now before the importing.

2. I have all the business information database in CSV format without any categories. How can I import such database into our site and it will automatically import under the right top, sub, sub categories (2 or 3 levels).

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, I APPRECIATE IT.
Francis Y.
Go Media Corp

implementing a second sub level shouldn be so hard ... althou i recomend if you are duing this .. to do it in unlimeted subcategories .. this way you can expand as much as you want without reconding .. .if you want yet another sublevel.


second.... i can't see how you can automaticly import the bussines in they're category ... if you don't have that information in you're file.

You can try to make a script that searches the description field and/or bussines name ... and calculate the proper category ... but that could make some errors ....

So i'd say to make a TEMP category ... put all the business there ... and manualy move the company to they're category. This might be more time consuming ... but it will be more acuarete.

Good luck

Thanks for your advice. I didn't know that the unlimited sub-categories can be done. Thanks a lot. I will definitely ask my programmer to program that. By the way, do you know any Ajax? I want to build a search engine like google where when a user type in their the search subject and a suggest box open below. Does it require another web server for that? I currently have one dedicated server leased from lunarpages. Just wonder if Ajax will require another one. Thanks.

FL

i am curently learning Ajax myself so i am a newbe at Ajax

No problem. Thanks

I'm with Solomongaby about the idea of unlimited categories. If you already have a table in your database that connects the business to a parent category, just create another table that cross references sub-categories to parent categories.

For instance, if you might have a category_to_parent_category list such as:
category_id => 1, parent_category_id => NULL (top-level cat)
category_id => 2, parent_category_id => NULL (top-level cat)
category_id => 3, parent_category_id => 1 (child of cat 1)
category_id => 4, parent_category_id => 1 (child of cat 1)
category_id => 5, parent_category_id => 2 (child of cat 2)

can't he just add a new field in the category table .... parent_category_id ?

Originally Posted by solomongaby

can't he just add a new field in the category table .... parent_category_id ?

Sure - I guess a business would not need the support of multiple categories.

?

Currently I am thinking to switch to other web development company because they are really bad on deadline. They are 4 months behind schedule, but every time when I try to get a quote from other companies. They always tell me depends on how they write the Mysql database, no one can't really give me a firm quote until I find out how they code the database.

Can you guys show me how and what should I ask my programmer to find out how they code our database? Is it something like this? What is coding structure for the database??? or Is our database expandable without rewriting the script? I am not sure how to ask. Please show me if you know.

Thanks all of your advices. I really appreciated it

Francis Y.

my advice is to do a complete rebuild of the whole system with the new specification.

Ask for a quote for the whole project and with the new requirements. Provide as much details as you, this way the coder can do a more acurate quote in both time and money.

Originally Posted by fylee216

Can you guys show me how and what should I ask my programmer to find out how they code our database? Is it something like this? What is coding structure for the database??? or Is our database expandable without rewriting the script? I am not sure how to ask. Please show me if you know.

I suggest to log into your web control panel and get into phpMyAdmin if its available. From there, you can do an export of your database (structure only, or structure and data dump) as an SQL file format. They will be able to determine your database from that.

Hello there,

Unlimited hierarchy of categories is the thing to go for. Secondly you may want to consider using tree traversing algorithms. Tree traversing will be useful when you want to extract any part of the hierarchical tree with a single SQL statement instead of calling recursive functions.

Importing data in categories,
The practice that I have followed is, to get the CSV data into excel file, add category columns and use excel's strech value function to fill series and then import them into a mysql database using a cheap conversion tool such as intelligent convertor.

Once the data is into MySQL manual conversions wil be a painful process. It is better that you fix your PHP scripts first, then do tweaking with the data in excel files and finally run a migration from excel to mysql.

--Amit

Thank you for all of your advices. They are very helpful. Thanks for all of your helps.

Francis Y.
Go Media Corp.

Now my site can make as many as top categories I want for a little over $1500. Is it a good deal? Just curious.

Frank