---------- From: Martijn Faassen[SMTP:faassen@vet.uu.nl] Reply To: M.Faassen@vet.uu.nl Sent: Thursday, April 22, 1999 11:30 AM To: zdp@zope.org Subject: [ZDP] CoolFAQ design questions
Hi there,
Joe Van Andel asked the following question:
I'm not quite clear on how Z-Tables will be used for CoolFAQ. Is each Q&A going to be stored in an entry in the Z-Table? How do you plan to represent the "natural" outline structure that most FAQs would want: Topic 1 Q1.1 Q1.2 Subtopic a Q1.2.1 Subtopic b Topic 2 Q2.1 Q2.2
I leave the floor to Martijn Pieters, our Z Tables advocate, or anyone else who wants to answer. This'll help me increase my Z Tables Zen too. :)
Well, Z Tables is supposed to be an SQL database on top of Zope, right? http://www.sths.org/genus/uber/renderall is the address of a page I am currently working on. It should look something like Animalia - Kingdom CHORDATA - Phylum UROCHORDATA - Subphylum VERTEBRATA - Subphylum MAMMALIA - Class EUTHERIA - Subclass PRIMATES - Order ANTHROPOIDEA - Suborder HOMINOIDEA - Superfamily HOMINIDAE - Family Australopithecus - Species Homo - Species sapiens - Genus sapiens - Subgenus PORIFERA - Phylum Fungi - Kingdom Monera - Kingdom Plantae - Kingdom BRYOPHYTA - Division Protista - Kingdom which is an outline structure similar to that mentioned above. It is generated by a recursive var inclusion that pulls from an SQL database. To put it simply, every item has a link to its parent. If you want an item to appear in multiple branches, you need a many-to-many table. Usually such a mapping is Xtable <- Mappingtable -> Ytable, but here it would be Xtable <- Mappingtable -> Xtable. Then I have multiple 'animals' linked each to one item. These could be multiple answers linked to one question, etc. Give it an extra mapping table, and you could have one answer link to multiple questions as well. It is not hard to generate a hierarchical structure in an SQL table, so long as you provide yourself with 'forms' (in this case, webpages) which internally understand the linkages and don't require you to know the id of what you want to link to.
Regards,
Martijn
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