Is there ANYONE willing to help the 'old man'?

[tom]

Hellow fellow PowWebsters,

I could sure use a suggested direction from one of you bright young programmers.

I am VERY willing to read, test and put the time in that's necessary to learn, but I am uncertain where to begin!

I've read reviews on many MySQL, Perl, and PHP guides - I am seeking YOUR suggestions for THE place to begin.

Essentially I want to do the following:

Create a customer input form in which the data comes from one of the tables from my database. Once the customer 'hits' submit, I'd like their order information to be sent to another table in the database.

Please suggest a beginners guide that will help me create this scenario. I am assuming that a MySQL guide and a Perl or PHP manual will be needed in tandum.

I am ready to read and learn. . .THANK YOU!!

tom

[Twevster]

Check out DevShed (http://www.devshed.com)

It's a great site with articles on lots of things. Otherwise the PHP manual http://www.php.net/manual/en or the Perl documentation http://www.perldoc.com are great reference material.

I've done a bit of Perl and PHP coding (my site runs on a combination of both) but haven't yet delved into MySQL.

Twevster

[hotrats]

I cut my teeth on just this sort of project using a text by Julie C. Meloni titled PHP Essentials. She pretty much holds your hand through the creation of a site that can handle e-commerce using PHP and mySQL. This is not a definative guide to PHP or mySQL but it will get you up and running in a very short time. Covers installing PHP/mySQL on a variety of environments including Windows (remember for security reasons this is a localhost deal). Most of the example she works you through can (with a little imagination) be transformed into whatever you are looking for including just the sort of scenerio you mention.

You can check out her web site for info on the book and a modest collection of code (actually the code used in the book is present here). www.thickbook.com (http://www.thickbook.com/index.phtml) Like I said I started with Julie C. Meloni and have moved on from there. Played with her scripts and to this day I still keep it close as a reference when I am looking to create new projects.

[tom]

THANK YOU, I am heading there right now!

'Old dogs' can learn new tricks - perhaps just a tad more slowly, and with some assistance from the generous!

COOOOL!

tom