[wp-hackers] Database lookup

[Alex Günsche]

On Thu, 2008-03-13 at 12:57 +0200, Bruce Clark wrote:
> I'm looking to create a page on my blog which has searchable capabilities.
> 
> I would like to access an Excel spreadsheet to find a particular record, and
> then display that record only. The spreadsheet is large - 10 000 records, so
> displaying them all is not an option.
> 
> Something along the line of "Type in your name here:", and then going to
> find the info required, and displaying it.
> 
> I've done a bit of a browse of WP Plugins and Widgets to see if there is
> anything that partially does this, but cannot find anything.
> 
> If one of you kind people can point me in the correct direction, it would be
> appreciated.

The problem, as you describe it, requires a custom solution. You say you
need to search entries, and you want it all on one page. This means that
you need an own table to keep the entries in an "atomized" fashion, and
a plugin to retrieve these items (and possibly more). Although this is a
common task for database applications, it's nothing that WordPress will
help with, by default. In WordPress, the "atoms" are posts; you *could*
put each entry in a post and use the WP search function (or a plugin),
but this would be a rather ugly solution. If you want something better,
you'd either have to write such a plugin yourself, or hire an
experienced developer (*wink wink*). 

Cheers,
Alex

-- 
Alex Günsche, Zirona OpenSource-Consulting
Blogs: http://www.zirona.com/ | http://www.regularimpressions.net
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