Step 7: Create the site data source(s)

Data sources in a dynamic content site hold the information needed to access a database or other source of dynamic data. You can use a Microsoft Access database file itself in place of a data source.

The data source may include database-specific information needed to access the database. In general, the SQL data source contains:

• The name of the database.
• Some form of access path to the database server. (The database itself might not be on the same machine as the Web server. The Web server needs to contact the database server to access to the information in the database.)
• The name of the driver that is used to communicate with the database. For ASP, this is an ODBC driver installed on the machine. For JSP, this is a JDBC driver that is usually a jar file (a kind of compressed archive used in Java development) within the Web application. For PHP, the MySQL driver is built-in, so no driver is specified in the data source.
• A username and password to establish an identity used for permission checks within the database.

XML data sources are different. They define which elements and attributes will be accessed by the content source.

Data sources are always stored on the server as part of your site. GoLive does this automatically for you.

For information on setting up data sources, see Understanding data sources.