Database-driven querying
In Chapter 4, we introduce the techniques to connect to a DBMS, run a moderately complex SQL query, retrieve results, and process these results. To illustrate these techniques, we implement the Hot New Wines panel on the front page of the winestore. The completed panel is shown in Figure 1-5. The panel shows the newest three wines added to the database that have been reviewed by a wine expert. The completed shopping cart component is described in Chapter 11 and includes the panel code developed in Chapter 4.
Figure 1-5. The completed front page panel with the Hot New Wines panel
User-driven querying and browsing
Users can display selected wines stocked at the winestore by entering simple search criteria.
The result of clicking Search after selecting wines of type "Red" in the "Margaret River" region is shown in Figure 1-6. The results screen shows the first 12 of 38 wines that match the criteria and has links at the base of the screen to allow users to move through the results.
Figure 1-6. Links at the bottom of the browse page allow users to move through the results set
The techniques for collecting user input with HTML <form> widgets, query formulation with user input, and results browsing are presented in Chapter 5. There we also introduce the basics of securing a web database application by preprocessing user input. The completed code for this module is in Chapter 13.