hotel database

I want to develop a website with a database of hotels from 5 diferent countries. I want the user to be able to write into text fields or select from bullets or any other better select option , the following information:

destination country
destination city
rooms
date of staying (because rates changes depending on the season)

once with the information, the site will display a list of hotel options from the countrie's city selected with pricing info
Here is a sample of what would appear:

cancun/Mexico--------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
(hotel) SGL / DBL / TPL / CHI.
-Miramar Mision $315 / $221 / $198 / $150
(apr. 12-jul.13/aug 26 - dec 26)

extra nights $100 / $69 / $62 / $32
----------------------------------------------------------

Im not planning to use online payment, or online ordering, I just want the info like the one above from all the hotels option, then if you are interested in a hotel you send an email to the company with credit card info and desire hotel and dates, so the web page would be just for information purposes. if you think about it it shouldnt be that hard, (or at least thats what I think because it doesnt have a lot of interactivity

I would like to make the website so that my client could easily make changes to the hotel prices or names in the future.

Now to the questions:

I have been told to use Mysql and php (I do know html, and ive done webpages in the past) so i started to learn sql, i think its pretty clear and logic how it works, also I was told to download apache, which if im not wrong installs php and mysql and configure the server in your computer? am I right?
I have been trying to find a book for php, but I dont know exactly which one to get, so:

1. can you recomend a specific book on php wich covers something like this?

2. By learning sql, I should have no problems applying my knowledge to mysql? ( i know that some functions are different)

3. How does php manipulates mysql?

4. Does apache installs php and mysql and configure my computer to be a server or i have to download php and mysql separetely?

5. if apache does all that, where do i start developing? where do I write the php code so it displays in apache?

6. where do I write the mysql tables and code?

7. For a website to contain mysql and php do you need a special hosting service? what do I have to consider when looking for the hosting provider, are they expensive?



I dont expect all my questions to be ansered, I would be gratefull if only one would be answer, I know it sounds as if I want everything solved, but trust me, that ive been trying to learn as much as i can. The reason I am posting this is because i have 4 more days to decide if I accept the job or not, so I want to be sure that I am going to be able to do this. then I will have 6 months to finish the website, I am a student and I need money to pay my school, Thank you in advance and if someone is still reading THANK YOU AGAIN !!!!!!!!!

ps, I was even planning to give money for the person who helps the most....has this been done before? jejej

1. Check this site out "http://www.php.net" They have good php documentation plus a list of book to consult if you don't find what you're lookin for.

2. There are some differences but I would say that the everyday usage for me is simple SQL Select statements and there is no big difference there and in your case I can see no problems with this

3. Don't understand the question. with PHP you can execute queries in the database and you receive a recordset of sorts

4. Most often you need to install them separatly, (I was lucky they compiled along with my OS distribution, lucky me) most likely you need to reconfigure apache after install

5. Im not sure as it was installed along with my OS so my case i probably special.

6. You can use some kind of software depending on OS or you can handle your tables through php. I would recommend you to look for a free software on the Internet.

7. When looking for a hosting service you need to make sure that they support PHP and mysql. Most hosting services do nowadys but you never know so look for it in the list of services your host provides. Also consider this php is a serverprocessing language so if you aren't granted much servertime the pages will be considered "slow"

Thanks for taking the time Lethean
5. "Im not sure as it was installed along with my OS so my case i probably special."

so then in your case where do you write the code? inside xaamp? or in some kind of php compiler?

"6. You can use some kind of software depending on OS or you can handle your tables through php. I would recommend you to look for a free software on the Internet."

So the code is not written inside apache xampp? do you now a good specific software?

"Also consider this php is a serverprocessing language so if you aren't granted much "servertime the pages will be considered "slow"

is this offered by the host? servertime? is this a feature like data transfer, storage, email accounts, that I should look for?

thanks again for your time

On my computer i have a web directory where I place my php files.
You do not need a compiler as php is a scripting language so you can write it in any texteditor and save it in a directory reachable through the internet. But you will probably need to configure apache to know that this directory is a web directory. I do not know much about apache so I'm not sure.

I don't set up databases for web applications very often, have done it a few times and then I used tools supplied by the host,
(phpmyadmin free php database admnistration "http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/")

The problem with "servertime" is that it is seldom listed among services provided. I just know that from own experience that some providers have "slow" computers. I had a website with a lot of computations and the responstime for a pagerequest took several seconds (sometimes over a minute) because the request had to wait for time to execute on the server. I think this is rare among hosts but you never know. I read a interesting thread about this. There are a couple of guys writing a site to find good hosts sadly its not yet up and running. ( Dev Shed Forums > Other > Project Help Wanted > Need Mods)

So your a student at what level? I am also a student studying to become a Software Engineer and this forums are an excellent source to learn both through helping and asking. so If you have any questions just ask.

I think this thread actually should be moved to some other topic as it has nothing todo with MS SQL Development. Can say where it should be moved though. But you moderators probably know.

Lethean, to be honest with you I'm a student of game arts, i want to do games one day so it has nothing to do with website developing but I Love websites, in fact the first thing that I became interested on was website developing, and then I decided to study 3d. I have developed a few websites in the past, for important companies, I am mexican and now I am living in the united states where I am studying game arts in fort lauderdale, I need money to pay my expenses and this job is lucrative, and since Im not in a position to do something related to games right now (i have been studying for 3 months) I decided to seek for something related to websites in which I have experience, but I dont have experience with Mysql and php

That's a nice thing about Mysql and php web applications, one doesn't need a lot of experience to create really nice web services and there are a lot of places to find great ideas at sites like this forum. So you're studying game arts, you should check out this site http://nehe.gamedev.net/. It has got some really nice tutorials if your courses are unsatisfying. Great OpenGl tutorials. Hope your website turns out the way you want it. I'm of on vacation tomorrow so good luck.