Database for visitors to search a list and find matching records

  • This is such a simple sounding question but we cannot find a solution or plugin that does what we need. We are a VERY small genealogy society but we have some unique collections of information we would like to make available to others on our website. For instance: we have a database which is a list of obituary publication dates for the local paper. Each record contains only 5 fields: Last name, Given Names, Publication Date, Remarks, and Record ID (not to be confused with the primary key). All are text fields. Importing and exporting data is no problem (either CSV or SQL files).

    What we need is a frontend search capability where the site visitor can input the Surname (using a “starts with” entry) and the Given Names (using a “contains” entry). Matches (if any) might return just one record or might return multiple records, displaying all 5 fields.

    Every solution we are finding basically displays the entire database table (over 100,000 records), and then filters the list down. We do not want the database itself to display to the site visitor, just the results of the search query. Other solutions we found focus on finding and replacing records through the dashboard, which is not what we need. Can this be done in WordPress?

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Developing with WordPress topic
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Do you mean something like this?

    https://whaio.com/lookup-data-in-tables/

    Thread Starter dltulsa

    (@dltulsa)

    Thank you. No. Your example is what I keep finding. My database/table is about 200,000 records long and would take too long to load each time. Plus, I do not want someone to be able to have access to the entire set of records by scrolling down. The frontend would just consist of the search fields and return the queries. It also needs to search on the last name and then narrow the search by looking at the Given Names, so it may be a combination of search and filter. But again, the frontend page needs to be separate from the records. Is this possible in WordPress? Thank you for taking the time to help.

    Thread Starter dltulsa

    (@dltulsa)

    Thank you. No. Your example is what I keep finding. My database/table is about 200,000 records long and would take too long to load each time. Plus, I do not want anyone to be able to have access to the entire set of records by scrolling down. The frontend needs to just consist of the search fields and return the queries. It also needs to search on the Last Name and then narrow the search by looking at the Given Names, so it may be a combination of search and filter. But again, the frontend page needs to be separate from the records. Is this possible in WordPress? Thank you for taking the time to help.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The topic ‘Database for visitors to search a list and find matching records’ is closed to new replies.