设置我的数据库表

Question

All feeds will be updated in my administration panel of which I hope to have quite a large archive in the prosperous future, however on my main page only the five most recent are to be shown per category chosen via the tab switcher. Here is a screenshot of the main page for illustration.

Now presumably using a database is the correct course of action. This page on runescape.com is my best reference for how I aspire to have my site look in the future.

I've established a database, however I now need to set up a table to hold the following information:

1. Title
2. Date
   • Day
   • Month
   • Year
3. Cover Image
4. Short Description
5. View More link

Looking into doing this, I see syntax such as VARCHAR but I do not know how to correctly use them. This is my attempt to create the table:

CREATE TABLE Feed (
    Title VARCHAR(???),
    day CHAR(2),
    month CHAR(2),
    year CHAR(4),
    short description VARCHAR(???),
    see more VARCHAR(???);

I get the syntax error below but I don't understand how to fix it; how do I choose the width of the VARCHAR column?

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '???), day CHAR(2), month CHAR(2), year CHAR(4), short description VARCHAR(???), ' at line 1

Answer 1

What you are asking about is the data types that MySQL supports. What you will need to figure out is what is the best data type for each of your desired fields (which will become columns in the database table). Here is a link to the MySQL documentation about data types: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/data-types.html

Here is another good source on database normalization, which is important when you're designing any database: http://www.studytonight.com/dbms/database-normalization.php

The trickiest one is going to be the image. Although you could technically store the image in the database, it isn't recommended. Instead, what I would do is store the path to the image on the file system.