Hi guys, I'm pretty new to database development, and I'm seeking out the quickest and simplest way to build a system in which a user completes a questionnaire (developed in HTML), and on Sumbit the data is dumped as a record into a file. This file could be a database, or some formatted textfile that could be imported later, perhaps... Heck, even an Excel file would be great. I have access to Excel, Filemaker, and some SQL capabilities (though I'm not sure to what extent - I don't know the first thing about SQL, but we have a server management package with a company that has some degree of MySQL 4 and 5 access) Can I get some advice on which method to pursue? This is for work and must be completed in a couple days (thanks boss, for making a massive sale that includes cards with a URL that doesn't exist yet). I don't want to display the data on the web at all. I simply need to be able to submit data from a form and dump it as a record into a database or spreadsheet, for storage/collection and later analysis etc.. thanks!!
The simplest storage method is a simple text file. In general, you create a text file, put it on your server, then your submission script opens and writes to the end of it everytime your form is submitted. For specifics, I would post your question in the programming forum under the language you intend to accomplish this with. It should be trivial no matter which language you use.
I would probably opt for a simple MySQL or Sqlite database. Once you have that setup it's pretty easy to pull or dump data from the database. A text file would work, but it's often much more complicated than a database when you need to manipulate data in the file.
My suggestion will be also mySql. It is easy to maintain than a text file and u can rely on a DB but not on a txt file. Retrieving data from DB will be much easier
Either MySQL or SQLite. SQLite will not work if you might have multiple people entering at the same time. You could always simply create and drop a text file into a directory for each entry.
Yep, go with mySQL. Extremely well know, and also allows you to easily update your script later in the future.
For $20 I will code you a script to do this and a lite admin panel that allows you to export to excell.
I've had this issue many times in the past, I didnt want the hassle of a db. You could use a simple xml file and write to that. There is loads of easy to follow examples on the web. Some people don't like using xml but it is pretty easy to set up and reusable
Google Docs has a form builder which you can publish online. I think it just emails the results but you might want to check it out.