[ic] Got a good question!

[Dan B]

At 10:07 AM 4/3/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello Dan, Mike, or anyone who knows,
>         I am an experienced Interchange user and currently host about 6 
> catalogs. I
>am doing an e-business solution for a client and I need to know if I can do
>this with interchange.
>
>         I want to run the DB from MySQL and feed 6 different sites with 
> the same
>product and order DB. However, out of 3200 products, I only wish to display
>certain categories and products in each one. Is it possible to use MySQL for
>the products DB and use the default DB in each site for categories and
>pricing so each site, even though it has the same products, can access
>different pricing and display a different range of product as well as a
>different left menu?
>Thanks,
>Robert Trembath
>CTO
>iShop Technologies Inc.

Yes, you can do this.  But why?  If you are interested in setting up a 
mall, search the archives for mall and you'll find those who have done it 
successfully.

But it would seem quite possible for multiple catalogs->1 database.  It 
would be a longs ways from the Construct template, though.  To allow for 
different pricing and different products to show up, you should probably 
create another table which specifies:

sku     price

So you can lookup only the skus/prices from the regular products database 
that are included in this store.  And for the left categories, search the 
products table for skus that are included in that category, but return the 
category of those products.

You may need to do some things for the order database to be shared.  E.g. 
Setup different ordernumber sequences.  (8000000, 8000001, 8000002 for one 
store, 9000000, 9000001, 9000002 for  the second store, etc.).  Or, use the 
database autonumber.  Each table will probably need a few extra fields as 
well (owner_catalog, etc.).

FYI:
http://developer.akopia.com/cgi-bin/ic/docfly.html?mv_arg=faq07%2e03

http://developer.akopia.com/cgi-bin/htsearch?words=mall

Have fun with it.  :)

Dan Browning, Cyclone Computer Systems, danb@cyclonecomputers.com