Solutions

Data Design Considerations

When it comes to data support for future requirements should always be an important design consideration. This is especially true with respect to platform "independence". Data "platform dependence" can often results in otherwise viable technologies becoming stranded when platform changes are required.

Data platform "independence" helps to assure solutions remain viable and productive with an extended useful life which in turn results in increased returns on investment. Data platform "independence" also provides inter-operability with other applications and systems resulting in expanded current and future capabilities. Data platform "dependence" significantly restricts future enhancement capabilities and significantly restrict upgrade/migration path options.

The first generation of JHZ-CS website solutions (1996) were originally designed to support data management using Microsoft Excel®. This simplified data management approach continues today...

JHZ-CS Solutions are designed to achieve and maintain a high level of platform independence which extends their useful productive life. With regards to the data component of these solutions, the "IID" (Item Information Dataset) provides data platform independence to the JHZ-CS Solutions.

IID

The IID maintains the data used by the JHZ-CS Page Generators, Item Search, Item Compare, Shopping Cart Solutions and others that use Customizable HTML Page Templates that contain special markup replacement variables that reference data items along with the special markup directives that direct generation and formatting characteristics at time of execution. The IID data is used during this process to dynamically generate text, HTML anchor, hyperlinks, parameters and form controls. In addition, JHZ-CS Solutions supporting RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) data sources use the IID to maintain database table data for the supporting RDBMS data sources to simplify database administration and maintenance especially for web masters with little to no database administration experience.

The IID is comprised of a series of files that are easily maintained using any standard text editor, database or spreadsheet application; or any application that supports export/save to standard CSV (comma delimited) or TAB delimited ASCII text files. In addition to greatly simplifying data management, this greatly expands inter-operability of data and supports easy migration it to other systems and applications if and when the need arises.

The IID is designed to support typical website desktop development environments allowing dynamic page generation without requiring a database. Not only does this eliminate the need to maintain multiple databases for both web server and desktop development platforms, as a built-in feature a website can alternatively operate using the IID as an operational backup system to the RDBMS by simply modifying one configuration variable setting.

Structure of the IID

The internal representation of data stored in the IID provides its platform independence. The data is stored in standard ASCII character format. Data fields are TAB delimited. Records are delimited by the default record terminator specific to the operating system where the IID resides which is automatically translated when transferred as TEXT using any standard FTP (File Transfer Protocol) application; see below. Optionally, CSV (comma delimited fields) data format is also supported.

Example:

Referencing Data in Templates

To reference IID data from within templates simply specify the data column name wrapped in double less-than greater-than pairs.

Example:

<<item_number>>

See templates for details.

Adding New Data Items

Adding new data items is easy. Simply add (insert column) a new data column and specify its data column name, then fill the new column with the desired data. To add a new data item "wholesale_price" to the previous example:

Example:

Then, to refer to the new data item within templates simply insert the following:

<<wholesale_price>>

Uploading and Downloading

Transferring the IID between computer systems is simple. Transferring the IID across platforms is simple using any standard FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program (use TEXT mode as opposed to BINARY mode). Most all FTP applications will perform all necessary platform specific conversions automatically. This allows the IID to be easily shared across the various supported platforms in use by the members of your team.