samzor

Hi, I'm re-developing an application which stores a number of businesses and provides the user with a search tool where they can find a specific type of business closest to them. The results appears in the address bar with the following format: http://www.nameOfSite.com/query.php?category=10&area=20&expand=10 *int is the primary key used to build the results query. *Category, represents a certain sub-category eg: 10 may = headlights which is a sub category of cars. *Area may be the name of the town where the user chose to search for the category. *Expand refers to a specific row in a table which may list a business which satisfies the first two constraints. For instance: you searched and received 10 results and chose no 10 from those results. Therefore i can improve the readability of the search result by using strings eg: http://www.nameOfSite.com/query.php?category=tyres&area=newtown&expand=nameOfCompany However I would rather have a search result build an address bar link like: http://www.nameOfSite.com/tyres/newtown/nameOfCompany What is the name for this process for altering the address bar to improve readability? Where can i read up on how to do this? Eg: online tutorial/textbook name. *I assume there are tools in frameworks like zend to do this?* thanks in advance

Depends if i know how to write the application, if its something which i have no idea then: Use Case diagrams to discover the variables to pass through $_GET and $_POST, expand the Use Case scenarios and then build a prototype schema, from this you can usually create an Adapter Pattern and which would form part of the Model component of a MVC for instance. Essentially once you get use case and the db schema done then a class diagram can be built. All these quantities are expanded as new facets of the application are discovered. Interesting point i make is unless i know a lot about how my solution will work then i don't try and write a complete interface class first as i usually make too many mistakes. Often write code scenarios of use to justify the addition of a method to an interface first.