Spongebob Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 The objective is to have the user provide some characteristics via a form. Based on the user’s input the php program would output a resorted table placing the nearest match on the top, with the second closest match on the second row and so on. I believe the table is small enough to store in an array? Some of the cells/fields can hold multiple values. Should these be stored as an array within an array? Sample table: http://virginianaturalhistorysociety.com/temp/table.png The full table has 40 rows. Thank you for your suggestions and advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted April 30, 2015 Share Posted April 30, 2015 How are "nearest" matches determined? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spongebob Posted April 30, 2015 Author Share Posted April 30, 2015 The table rows represent an animal species. The cells within a row represent traits of that species. User data is compared against the corresponding data in row cell of the table (http://virginianaturalhistorysociety.com/temp/table.png) When user data matches the corresponding cell in a row a 1 is returned, else a 0. Table rows are then sorted by highest score (most matches) and displayed to the user. For example: The user data = Sandhills, Slender, Smooth, Uniform, Brown, White The user data is compared against the corresponding data in each row cell of the table (http://virginianaturalhistorysociety.com/temp/table.png) Species (row) one has 3 matches Species (row) two has 4 matches Species (row) three has 6 matches Species (row) four has 3 matches Rows would be sorted by the number of matches: 1. Species (row) three has 6 matches 2. Species (row) two has 4 matches 3. Species (row) one has 3 matches 4. Species (row) four has 3 matches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted May 23, 2015 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Okay, this is going to be a bit tricky to do, and you'll want to start small and work your way up. First, I would definitely normalize the database structure. Although you could store multiple values in arrays, that'll make it much harder and slower to search. I would also highly recommend that you create checkboxes or drop-down menus for the user to select qualities. That will limit room for error. With all that in mind, I'd then start with the functionality to check maybe 2 things and work your way up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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