[mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...

[Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au]

PHP will do ODBC and database abstraction (Ala Perl DBI),
but it also has strong native DB support[1]. Basically tell
PHP where the DB is, connect to it, send a query and read
the result into the page.

I usually write my own abstraction so I can use DB specific
functionality if I want. For example, older versions of
MySQL didn't do transactions, so my "update" function for
MySQL was a little more convoluted.

While I haven't used Cold Fusion, we have CF people here and
the functionality and theory seem pretty similar between the
two products, and indeed I could probably grok CF code if I
really had to.

Cheers,

Antti
[1] I can't think of a modern DB it doesn't support out of the box.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jessica Anderson [mailto:janderson at PacificDataServices.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 12 March 2002 7:44 AM
To: 'Scott Carr'
Cc: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
Subject: RE: [mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...


Scott,

Thank you for your response.  I do have some other questions such as:

Does it run off a ODBC server?

For example for cold fusion you must map out the database through cold
fusion server in order for the code to work properly how would php work in
this sense?

I knew to mapserver and trying to figure out what approach I should use in
creating maps online.

I am currently running windows 2000 operating system.

Thanks,
Jessica

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Carr [mailto:scottcarr at telocity.com]
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 10:40 AM
To: janderson at PacificDataServices.com
Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] PHP Vs. Cold Fusion...


The information for PHP is easily accessible.  PHP runs on practically
everything from Win95-WinXP, Linux, Unix, and Others.  You don't have to
purchase a runtime license.  PHP has ~1200 functions at your disposal
including the MapServer functions.

PHP is easier to use.  (Opinion big time)

Look at http://www.php.net for the full manual online in different formats.

<?php
    mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "password");
    mysql_selectdb("databasename");
    $myrows = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users");
?>

Opens a database for use and runs a query on said database. Full code.

Do you have any other questions?

Jessica Anderson wrote:

>Could anyone explain how php would be more useful than cold fusion or the
>advantages of using php?
>
>Jessica Anderson
>Pacific Data Services
>PH. (209) 524-2479
>FAX. (209) 524-0282
>
>
>

--
Thanks

Scott Carr
OpenOffice.org
Whiteboard-Doc Maintainer
http://whiteboard.openoffice.org/doc/