XML Search/Find routines...?

[John Patten]

Hi All!

I have a little alternative Web Browser I created using AltBrowser. It's in two pieces, a teacher client and a student client. The teacher client allows the teacher to select specific web resources, that they input, and save those resources as an xml file. The XML file is saved to an ftp directory. The student client then downloads the teacher's xml file and allows the student to access the specific web resources.

I would like to be able to allow a teacher to share the resources that they collect in one massive XML file. Then give teachers the ability to search that massive XML file by key word, grade level, subject, etc. and add any resources they might find to their own collection.

I'm not sure if this (large XML file)is a good strategy for collecting a global list of resources and then using a find to locate specific resources. Maybe a mysql db would be better, but I have not had any success connecting to any existing mysql db on our server. 

(One thing that I think would be helpful for newbies trying to use the MySql connection would be a mysql script to create a basic mySql db. I bet there are others out there that haven't had much experience designing mySQL dbs. Then the developer could create a user for the db using maybe, phpMyAdmin. And then test out the built-in rev db tools. This way they would be assured of creating a db in MySQL that is formatted correctly. Maybe even bundling a little rev stack that would demonstrate connecting to the created db...Just an idea :-)

 I have not even begun to think about users trying to add a resource to the XML at the same time, eliminating duplicate entries, etc. etc.

I just need some ideas and maybe a push in the probable right direction.

I'll post the project to my user space (as soon as that's set up) for anyone who cares to take a look

Thank you!

John Patten
SUSD