Angry_Beaver said:

So are you saying I should put the info in a spreadsheet?

By all that is unholy please no.

Visual Studio Express runs SQL Express.  You can use that for databases.

I'm a bit rusty on the .NET stuff, but conceptually you follow the same patterns regardless.  It sounds as though you're doing a Windows Form project, and not a web project, is that right?

For just connecting once the database and tables already exist...
The general logic for reading from a database in pseudo-code tends to be this,

open database connection

results = execute SQL statment

loop through results

    do something with the row

end loop

close database connection

string connString = "Data Source=localhostSqlExpress;Initial Catalog=MyDatabase;Integrated Security=True";

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connString);

conn.Open();



sqlComm = new SqlCommand("SELECT title FROM games WHERE title LIKE '%Mario%'", conn);

SqlDataReader reader = sqlComm.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection);

while(reader.Read())

{

    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Game Title: " + reader["title"].ToString());

}

conn.Close();

CREATE TABLE games (

    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT,

    title VARCHAR(100),

    score DECIMAL(3,1),

    PRIMARY KEY(id)

);

<?php

require_once('Database.class.php');

$db = Database::getDatabase();

$rows = $db->query("SELECT title FROM games WHERE MATCH(title) AGAINST(?)", $_GET['search']);

print_r($rows);

?>

Angry_Beaver said:

Well, I was thinking that this could be a pretty complete game info thingamabob, with spaces of a sort for each game. Anyone who provides the site with news updates could link them to the respective game. And then everything important about the game, including news, could be discovered with the search feature that was more or less my initial idea.

The whole thing sounds like a massive task to this coding novice, though, so if you're eager to add an included feature to the site, don't hold your breath for me -- go ahead and do it at your leisure.

I've already been pushing my luck just getting people to click categories.  Getting them to associate games ain't gonna fly.  Gotta be automated in some fashion -- tricky, but not impossible.

Anything even remotely resembling this is on the back-burner anyway.  Whole lot of redesigning taking precedence, but additional projects.