Hi all,

As the title implies, I am a newbie when it comes to databases. I have no real knowledge of any of the various languages. However, I have an idea that I was curious about, mainly to see if it is possible to construct. Here are the parameters or circumstances if you will:

The database will contain sale prices of routes for various zip codes across the country. In addition it will also contain the state, # of stores, type of stores serviced (will only have 3 choices in this category), sales multiple, weekly and yearly gross, and date of sale.The database itself, I would think, is easy enough to construct given the right knowledge and required information.

My question is this, and it really has 2 parts; First can this database be integraded into an existing website and be made searchable. For example: A buyer/seller could search by zip code all of the route sales in that area over the past 6 months, search by state, gross income, etc and have only that information displayed. Secondly, is there a way to take the queried(sp?) information and display in graphic form, in addition to a table?

I'd appreciate any and all help/responses!
Thanks,
TechnoBabble28

Yes, the database can be incorporated into a website and any data you have in the database can be queried. If you have gross income in your database, and that can be tied somehow to a zip code or a route, then the query can be written.

I'm not sure what you mean by displaying the information in graphic form. If you mean displaying a dot, a chicken, or a hot dog for each route found that is simple. If you mean can a route be drawn onto a map, that can be done but it is a significantly larger challenge. You'll have to explain what you mean in a bit more detail before I can answer this question for you, but someone else might have more understanding and be able to answer right away.

-PatP

Thanks for the fast response!

Each route has it's own zipcode, however in some instances there are 2 or more routes in the same zipcode but the route value or gross income would be directly related to that particular route/zipcode. If need be the route could be given a generic # to make the correct relationship. Again, I don't know much about the infrastructure of a database so im not exactly sure how that would work.

And my apologies, by graphical i meant displaying the queried information on say a line graph or chart of some sort in addition to displaying the query in a table.

Before you get too far down the road, you probably need to take a guesstimate of how much traffic you expect. That expectation makes a lot of the "up front" decisions a whole lot easier.

Based on what you've described so far, this could be a pretty simple web site. You can obviously make it as complex as you like, but it sounds like your needs are pretty simple and relatively well defined which makes setting up a site to satisfy those needs much easier.

As long as you have the information that you need to display or manipulate in your database, you should be "good to go" from that perspective. Submitting a query based on the parameters on a page isn't rocket science. Displaying a list of the data returned by the query shouldn't be too challenging either. Building a simple graphic display (like a bar or line graph) from the query results ought to be straightforward too.

It sounds to me like you're in pretty good shape, and ready to start this project!

-PatP

The throughput of traffic to the website will undoubtably grow as the business progresses. We've already expanded 10 fold in the last 6 months or so we have been running. The website itself is already up and running as well, I put that together when we started so that portion of it is taken care of. This component will just be integrated into the existing site.

I'm glad to hear that it should be a pretty straight forward process and is doable. Now it's just a matter of hiring someone to do it!

Thanks for all the help!
~Chase