PHP / MySQL-编辑批准系统

Question

I have a business listings website. I am currently building an interface for users to log in and update their listings.

The functionality I would like to implement is as follows:

1. user edits listing and submits
2. the edits are sent to admin for approval
3. in the meantime the existing listing remains on the site
4. admin reviews the edits and corrects any mistakes before approving

Now usually something like this can be accomplished by storing a 'duplicate' row in the database, with a flag set to 'pending'.

However if possible I would like to try a different approach, as the listing data is stored across several tables, including one which contains multiple category selections.

So ideally I would prefer not to create additional database records. Is there a better alternative I could use?

Answer 1

There are actually 2 different approaches.

1. Use the database (either in the same tables, or some "pending changes" tables with almost the same structure as the original ones), although one way or another it creates records.

2. Don't use the database at all, but some intermediate store (key / value store; message queue; memcache; email;just some files; whatever comes to mind ;))

With option 2 you can easily do as the 2 commenters on your question already said: create a data structure and serialize this structure and store it anywhere until the admin "approves" the data and updates it in the database.

At first glance the second option would of course be quicker to implement, although implementing it in the database could give you the ability to "rollback" changes by using a current or state flag. Secondly, imho, you want to keep all your (related) data close together to keep it maintainable