In an attempt to redesign a website, I put this page together by hand. However, there are currently over 100 more shows already that need to be added, and three new shows get added every year.
In the old system, a text document was used as a makeshift 'database'; it stored data about each show, with shows separated by '#' and data fields separated with ']'. Here's an excerpt:
#The Whorl of the Leaves]WhorlOfTheLeaves]3]F]167
#Aladdin]Aladdin]8]N]0
#A Christmas Carol]XmasCarol84-]7]N]0
#The Feral Child]FeralChild]7]N]118
#Camelot]Camelot]11]N]169
A PHP script was then used to extract the information about each show and make the page seen here.
I'm sure a script could be used to put together a page such as the one shown above, but it seems like there should be a better system than a text document to store the information.
My question is: if the text document 'database' is working, should I bother changing it? Is there a better way to organize the information about each show?
SQLite would be prefect for you. It's a tiny database that requires no configuration or setup - yet comes built into most PHP installs.
Just use PDO and your good.
$db = new PDO('sqlite:/path/to/here/mydb.sq3');
$db->query('SELECT * FROM shows');
You could save yourself a lot of trouble by using a content management system such as drupal.
Yep, there are a ton of "better" ways of doing this. But if you're happy with it and it works, why change it?
If you think you'll be able to update your text based database each and every time without any hiccups (such as inconsistency between two files because you mis-uploaded the older one) you really don't need a full database implementation.
However you can try some nicer alternatives (which you can edit in most software including Excel) such as SimpleXML.
http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/Introduction-To-SimpleXML-With-PHP.html
It is a very simple XML parser for PHP. It comes enabled by default if you have PHP version 5.1.2 and over.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/simplexml.installation.php
If you want to try something much more flexible than just a text file and still not a full resource hog database implementation, you could enable SQLite extensions on your PHP and start using it.
Advantages of SQLite (or any other database implementation) is that you can do CRUD (Create Retrieve Update Delete) operations without uploading any file to server.