Idea on how to represent data?

[mendoz]

Hey guys.

 

I don't know if the title is correct but here is the situation.

 

Some of my database:

products

categories

id  id

parent_id  parent_id

name  name

 

All going well so far.

 

Now I would like each product to have extra data depending on the category.

For example: products in 'Laptop' category would have data like 'battery_time', 'memory', 'cpu' etc.

 

I'd like the user to be able to edit different 'data sets' or whatever this is called.

For example: user wants to add fields 'color' and 'year' to the extra data template for category 'guitar'.

 

How can I represent the this in mysql?

 

I hope you could understant my question... If not tell me please.

 

Thanks!

[fenway]

Another table....

[mendoz]

Yeah, I know it's gonna take a table or two or three.

 

But how?

 

[smartin1017]

You would probably have to set up some sort of CMS so that the different rows or columns are displayed in an editable field, such as textboxes. There would have to be an option there for them to ad field, it doesnt matter what it looks like on the outside its the coding on the backend that will take the information and create a field or what not. Be very leary of this route though because you would be opening up your database to people entering info which could lead to problems. Make sure you look in to keeping it secure and I would do some sort of login page.

[mendoz]

Thanks for your comment smartin.

 

You got my request wrong,

I already have an idea of how the front-end should be like.

 

I'm just asking for an idea on what tables do I have to create to store this dynamic data.

[fenway]

Yeah, I know it's gonna take a table or two or three.

 

But how?

 

Since it doesn't sound like the details are shared, make tables called guitar_detail, laptop_detail, etc., corresponding to your category name.

[mendoz]

Yeah, but I want different templates .

 

Maybe all categories will show ('name','year','weight','height'),

Except for two categories which will show ('name','year','color','temperature');

 

So I would need two templates.

 

What I did so far:

 

templates_table:

template_id

template_name

templates_cell_table:

cell_id

template_id

cell_name

 

products 

categories 

data_templates 

templates_cells 

id 

id 

id 

id 

parent_id 

parent_id 

name 

template_id 

name 

name 

 

text 

[/td]

[td]template_id 

 

 

 

Now it is easy to select a template and to get it's cells.

But what about the data for each product?

[fenway]

I don't know what you mean by "cell", "data", and "template".

 

But I would still do one each.