help setting up wamp to test site offline

[mikesco762]

I am new to web design and all the tools that go with it.I have been learning as I go but find it difficult to understand instructions given by people that are fluent with these tools. I am looking for instructions on how to set up wamp to run our website like it runs online. I have followed instructions and installed wamp on one of our machines (Win XP). I neeed easy to follow instructions on how and where to place the website and database. Can anyone help?

[eelixduppy]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, mikesco762! :)

The site files should be placed in htdocs in the apache directory. As for the database, you either have a backup of another database you can load in or manually add information into it yourself through phpmyadmin [phpmyadmin.net] or the command line.

Since you are relatively new, you can find great information from the following locations:

• [apache.org...]
  
• [mysql.com...]
  
• [php.net...]
  
• [phpmyadmin.net...]
  

Not to mention WebmasterWorld ;)

I hope that puts you on the right path. You can always search around [webmasterworld.com] here for some related topics; I'm sure there are some.

Good luck!

[mikesco762]

Thanx for the info eelixduppy. It did help answer some of my questions. I have a back-up of our filemaker database but I am still clueless as to where to put it or how. Input from anyone would be welcome.

[eelixduppy]

If you have phpmyadmin installed, you can use that to import the database. Or if not, you are going to have to do it through the command line with mysqlimport [dev.mysql.com] or load data infile, etc...

[mikesco762]

Hi again eelixduppy. I tried importing the tab-file but got an error message. Below is the error message and a small sample of jibberish that went along with it.

Error
There is a chance that you may have found a bug in the SQL parser. Please examine your query closely, and check that the quotes are correct and not mis-matched. Other possible failure causes may be that you are uploading a file with binary outside of a quoted text area. You can also try your query on the MySQL command line interface. The MySQL server error output below, if there is any, may also help you in diagnosing the problem. If you still have problems or if the parser fails where the command line interface succeeds, please reduce your SQL query input to the single query that causes problems, and submit a bug report with the data chunk in the CUT section below:
----BEGIN CUT----
eNrsvVuT2ziyLvqs9m/oCDzsmLAjbJUA8DrzxJJYKu1mSVqkyqXyjh07enp6rXFMT3evXp5z9jq/
/hAkSOKSAFlliyIp9cNMFUDb+L7EJTORyIzTdJf+GS0xWhKUxNs/IxogGiKMQ+o55LvskPd+/913
y4/Zn9H/2Pztz+i//vOX33/8479+/mP+y+e/zn//++/v/x9E5o6PyGLh3SzwDfYR9v+8IH+mC/TT
f//1ty//58s/Ufx/f0f/47uH/87+LfkzcueLOSEffvrtn//816+fv/z3h1+/fPeYpWiXvUfROt4e

[mikesco762]

I found out that the file I tried to import was just a tab-file with info, not the data-base. I do have the correct file now but have ran into another problem. The data-base is a large file. (791 mb) The phpmyadmin is ver.2.8.1 which limits the size.I heard the newer version does not limit size but I am unsure which file I need to download on the PHPMYADMIN site. There are 4 files that are English only that I would probably choose from or do I need all four?