CSV/Mysql for Beginners?

[BostonRS14]

I'm looking to get into the database a bit more in my solo league, but Excel can't seem to handle the big csv files adequately.

What I have been playing with is trying to create something that tracks my stats obviously, but I want to be able to look at how a players are against a certain team or pitcher/batter. Tracking game by game, year by year possibly.

I'm running a Mac (v10.5.6, 4 GB 667 HMz DDR2 SDRAM) and wanted to know the best (preferably free) option for looking at mysql files that a beginner can get into and dig around and have fun with.

Any suggestions?

[kq76]

easyphp?

I was just going to say phpmyadmin, but easyphp includes phpmyadmin and other tools allowing you to do a lot more. You could just import the db into phpmyadmin and look at it through that, but you could then write some php to look at it however you want.

[BostonRS14]

Originally Posted by kq76

easyphp?

I was just going to say phpmyadmin, but easyphp includes phpmyadmin and other tools allowing you to do a lot more. You could just import the db into phpmyadmin and look at it through that, but you could then write some php to look at it however you want.

any sites that would walk a beginner through this? I tried messing around with myphpadmin and had no clue how to do this.

Excel works fine for what I want, it just can't handle the multiple lookups and the size of the csv's.

[kq76]

This easyphp setup guide is for a couple versions back of easyphp, but it honestly hasn't changed, at least not much on the surface IMO.

There are countless php / mysql tutorials online, but I found that tizag's tutorials are pretty good.

As far as a walk-through for just phpmyadmin, I don't know. It always seemed pretty self-explanatory. Maybe it's just you need to know the basics to get it. You can think of a mysql database like a single excel file. Inside a db you have tables (equivalent to sheets in excel) and in those tables you have fields (columns in excel) and records (rows in excel). Beyond that it can get a little complicated with optimal field types and rules, collation, etc, but if you just want to fool around with the ootp db in phpmyadmin you probably don't need to know all that advanced stuff.

The hardest part is probably just setting it up (easyphp makes this, well, easy) and importing the db (click on the import tab in phpmyadmin and it's pretty easy from there). After that you can just browse it.