Hello
I have an XML file of rental houses for display on a property lettings website. The data is relatively simple e.g. number of rooms, address, price.

Initially, I was hoping to import the XML data into a MYSQL database and filter using PHP but that suddenly seems like overkill : the XML list currently contains only 7 properties to list. The average number of properties is around 15. The maximum number ever was 41!!

Is it possible to filter the data directly from the XML file using an on page drop down box and display only the filtered results on the page? My client would like site users to be able to specify the number of rooms they want and see only those properties or view properties by a price range.

I know that 7 properties can easily be displayed on one page. In fact, in most cases, all of the properties could more or less be on one page. I suppose my client is thinking of the rare times when there are 40 o more properties.

Thanks in advance!

Hi esteevan,

No reason you cant, I created a dashboard view for BackupExec using perl to generate xml data, heres an excerpt from the .xslt :

---------------------------------------------
<xsl:sort select="server_name"/>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="contains(job_status, '5') or contains(job_status, '19')">
<tr bgcolor="#9acd32">
<td><xsl:value-of select="server_name"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="job_name"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="job_status"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="start_date"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="time_started"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="bytes_processed"/></td>
<td><xsl:value-of select="elapsed_time"/></td>
<td><a href="{job_log_full_path}">Click here</a></td>
</tr>
</xsl:when>
---------------------------------------------

cheers,

kbp

Sometimes, the size of the database is irrelevant to the complexity. Determining whether to use a relational (or other) database engine may very well depend on the relations and logic that you need to apply to the data/problem. Query actions on a dataset is tricky code to write, and the difficulty is the same whether your dataset is large or small. If the option to use a RDMS is there, and if it simplifies the job or makes the finished product better (and how will you know when it is 'finished'?), then I suggest that you consider using it. When you start to use the system, you will probably find that you want to add features or make changes, and leveraging the flexibility of a DBMS will facilitate that.

--- rod.