[davestar057]

Hi guys,

I guess most of you are familiar with the Preorder Tree Traversal algorithm....my question is...how can I use this to creat a navigation????

I understand the theory, and how to number the hierachy of tables and can put them in MySQL and query the database etc.....

My question is how do you use this for real life, website navigation????? How doyou generate a menu, using this theory??


PLEASE PLEASE HELP....as I think I am about to smash my head against a wall!!!!!!!!!

[dgreenhouse]

It sounds like you're already on your way...

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/hie...data-database/

Just structure the menu items as regular hierarchies.

Something like...

HTML Code:

<table>
<thead>
<th>Parent</th><th>Child</th>
</thead>
<tr><td>NULL</td><td>Menu_Top</td></tr>
<tr><td>Menu_Top</td><td>Home</td></tr>
<tr><td>Menu_Top</td><td>About Us</td></tr>
<tr><td>Menu_Top</td><td>Products</td></tr>
<tr><td>Products</td><td>Software</td></tr>
<tr><td>Products</td><td>Hardware</td></tr>
<tr><td>Menu_Top</td><td>Articles</td></tr>
<tr><td>Articles</td><td>PHP Examples</td></tr>
<tr><td>Articles</td><td>MySQL</td></tr>
<tr><td>Menu_Top</td><td>Contact</td></tr>
</table>

I thought using an html vbCode would actually render as HTML - silly me!

Well, what I was trying to show was a hierarchical table of menu items.

[davestar057]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate it.

But I don’t understand how to actually implement this into a working site navigation??

I understand the Tree Traversal…and how its stored in a database…..

BUT..

How do I use this in a navigation?? Does anybody have some code for this??

Or do you just code the actual navigation by hand??


I hope you can help me here……as I cannot understand, how the Tree Traversal can actually help me in a real world situation….such as creating a menu navigation system??

THANKS AND THANKS AGAIN..for any help, I just need a little push in the right direction or a little PHP to make use of the values I have stored in a MySQL table.

David

[davestar057]

basically....on a large site, like an ecommerce....do you automatically generate the navigation......or do you just hardcode it and point it to the correct pages...then use a 'categories system' like about to pull the correct products??

[davestar057]

Nobody has an answer ??

Please let me know how you do a navigation for a web shop?


MANY THANKS

[dgreenhouse]

I think you may be putting the "cart before the horse."

I'd think the question you should be asking is: "What do I want to navigate?" vs. "How do I navigate it?".

I don't think I need to belabor the structure of a typical menuing system as we use them everyday.

For a simple answer to:
"on a large site, like an ecommerce....do you automatically generate the navigation......or do you just hardcode..."

On a large site it would be daunting; if not almost impossible, to reliably manage a dynamic menuing system. On small sites, one typically just hardcodes it.

You can look into a number of the CMS & Framework systems out there to see how they manage the menuing structure.

drupal.org, joomla.org, phpCake.org, framework.zend.com, codeigniter.com and others.

Code Igniter has some very good tutorials on their framework: http://codeigniter.com/tutorials.

Also... Google...

This search garnered many possibilities right off the bat:
http://www.google.com/search?q=php+m...ient=firefox-a