Data base nibbishness.

[Dribble Joy]

I have a shite, a webshite.
I am adding a forum useing phpBB (http://www.phpbb.com/).

In the installation it asks me to create a DSN (data sourse name).

What the fuck, how the fuck?

[Xeno LARD]

Firstly, use a proper forum BBsoftware. OpenBB (http://openbb.com) is a nice start.

You need a MySQL database and PHP 4 support. Contact your host for more information.

[NS_CHROME54]

uh xeno he wouldn't have even been able to get to the install screen had he not had php4 enabled on his server. but yeah DJ, contact your host for mysql dbase name, user name, user password, and dsn (that is of course assuming you have MySQL, but if you're running php, then you should have it)

another option is to just go with an MS ACCESS DB, i did that once when i was making a really makeshi[f]t product listing for a small computer store in my old town with ASP. it's good for anything smalltime, but if you're going to have more than 10 users logged on at a time you'll want to go MySQL. also, ACCESS is ODBC (whereas MySQL is RDBMS), so you'll have to point it to the physical access file, not like that's hard or anything.

[Xeno LARD]

Urrgh, PHP's support for anything else but MySQL isn't fun. phpBB probably doesnt work w/o MySQL anyway.

[hinch]

dsn = data source name
its a windows based shortcut wrapper for an odbc connection

ie: php/mysql systems will never have to use it.

it'll want your db host name which will be localhost more likely than not
username and password will probs be the same as your ftp username and password but check with hosting company.
port will be 3306 if not they'll tell you other wise.
leave prefix as phpbb_

it'll do the rest its self phpbb is really stupidly easy.




as for php and ms access php as with all languages works with all db types its just dependant on the drivers for said datasource being available on the machine.

only ones php doesnt out of the box support (on ofc a vanilla unix based box) is ms access and sql server and oracle

however all 3 can be made to work just by installing drivers and recompilling php and apache with support for the correct odbc type

[Spermy]

You sir - are a genius.

Can I possibly call on you for a little help with the old SQL at some point this semester?

[hinch]

anyone can ask me anything at anytime

whether i answer or not is a different story but i usually have a try