S
Steve
Hi-
I am developing a smaller scale, data driven site for an electronic device
manufacturer.
So far, all of the data for the products has been stored into a database.
This has been fairly straight forward as the data has so far been common
from each product (Price, dimensions, title, etc)
but I know need to handle the technical specifications see
(http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html) *see "Technical Specifications"
This data will vary from product to product, not just the values of a given
item (IE: Width) but the actual items themselves (Some products might have a
screen, others won't)
So I'm faced with a problem of how to store this data. I don't want to make
it static content in the aspx page as I have many custom controls to display
the data, I would like to keep it in some sort of a store, either SQL server
or I'm thinking XML.
XML. haven't really used it. I'm interested now because I think this would
be a good use for it. I do have some questions though:
1) Can XML data be stored in a database other than a binary for the file
itself or a path, I mean is there some sort of "XML type" so that I could
get back a DataTable of XML data from the SQL server?
2) Editing XML. I am also new to ADO.net. Is it fairly simple to create a
generic editor that would allow me to insert new technical spec items (IE:
"voltage", "battery life", etc) It seems like it should be possible to read
the XML, bind it to a DataGrid, then edit parts of the DataGrid and easily
propagate those changes to the XML data, either on file or, hopefully stored
in a database.
I'm looking for some guidance here. I'm not sure the best way to proceed
and since I'm doing this project for almost nothing (learning experience) I
don't want to waste a week exploring the wrong solution or learning about a
technology that might not be the best solution.
What do you all think? What would be a clean solution?
Thanks for any input,
Steve
I am developing a smaller scale, data driven site for an electronic device
manufacturer.
So far, all of the data for the products has been stored into a database.
This has been fairly straight forward as the data has so far been common
from each product (Price, dimensions, title, etc)
but I know need to handle the technical specifications see
(http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html) *see "Technical Specifications"
This data will vary from product to product, not just the values of a given
item (IE: Width) but the actual items themselves (Some products might have a
screen, others won't)
So I'm faced with a problem of how to store this data. I don't want to make
it static content in the aspx page as I have many custom controls to display
the data, I would like to keep it in some sort of a store, either SQL server
or I'm thinking XML.
XML. haven't really used it. I'm interested now because I think this would
be a good use for it. I do have some questions though:
1) Can XML data be stored in a database other than a binary for the file
itself or a path, I mean is there some sort of "XML type" so that I could
get back a DataTable of XML data from the SQL server?
2) Editing XML. I am also new to ADO.net. Is it fairly simple to create a
generic editor that would allow me to insert new technical spec items (IE:
"voltage", "battery life", etc) It seems like it should be possible to read
the XML, bind it to a DataGrid, then edit parts of the DataGrid and easily
propagate those changes to the XML data, either on file or, hopefully stored
in a database.
I'm looking for some guidance here. I'm not sure the best way to proceed
and since I'm doing this project for almost nothing (learning experience) I
don't want to waste a week exploring the wrong solution or learning about a
technology that might not be the best solution.
What do you all think? What would be a clean solution?
Thanks for any input,
Steve