How do you setup an sql database?

[drew22299]

Can someone answer this question? How do you set up databases ie once they have been arranged with the hosting?

Is it as simple as this?

1) Get an sql database from your hosting,
2) Create your php/cgi code for a forum/copy and paste code for a forum and put it into your webspace

3) Once you have done that, will the forum operate? What needs to be done? How does the code relate to the database?

Also, is this similiar to having online shopping software - having a basket and browsing items?

I would appresiate it if some could give an description of how this all works, as searching the Internet for hours has not given me the answers!

Thanx,

[Krishnaswamy]

The ISP provider gives you access to some space on his server. You need to setup a database on this server. Once you setup a database, you need to add tables to your database. The tables contains the data you want to pull out. For example, the table cotains your product information, customer information, etc. This is one side of the story.
You want your clients(who sits infront of their browser) to see what products you have. But you will not let the client to go to the database server (also this is not a good practice). So you will allow him to send a request to the web server. The web server in turn send this to the SQL server. The SQL server processes this information and sends a result to the web server which will package this into an HTML page for you to see. This is what generally happenning.

HTH