Hi, I'm kind of new to MySQL but am familiar with other DBs. Currently I'm working with a MySQL4 database and I have a very specific problem which could be easily solved via views.

Problem:
I have as follows -
tbl_cat
-id_cat
-txt_name
...

tbl_prop
-id_prop
-id_cat (fk)
-txt_desc
-txt_type
-txt_default
....

tbl_product
id_prod
txt_ref_name
...

tbl_prod_prop
id_prod_prop
id_prop
txt_hash


OK what is all of this? it's a dynamic product for a shop. How does it work conceptually? We create a product category(tbl_cat) and add properties to it (tbl_prop) such as name, picture, html text, etc...
Finally when we create a product, we determine it's category and fill in each of the properties.
My original idea was to use a view to generate the listing of the products and properties, but mysql4 doesn't have views...
What would be the best aproach? I thought of creating a cache table, where when a product is updated or inserted, I run a script that creates updates a record of a temporary dinamic table. Soething like a false view, updated on demand. Is that as stupid as it sounds? Or have I actually an intresting concept here?

You don't have any other alternative....