I'd like to pull data from a mySQL database and put it in some tables in a WP page. I'm using WP 3.1.1.
Imagine that I've got a table of sales figures that I want to pull from a mySQL database and then display them in a table on a WordPress page.
I know just enough php to make a db connection, pull the data, and echo it out. But, I'm not sure what is the best way to do this in conjunction with WordPress.
a) Is it okay if I put my tables in the WordPress database? (This way I could use the WP's database connection). Would they cause some sort of conflict? Would they be over-written when I upgrade WP?
b) Where should I put my php code? Can I just plop the php in the WP's HTML editor when I create a new page? If not, should I just make a php file and include it somewhere? If so, where would I put the include line?
c) Is there a plugin that allows you to pull data from a database? I've seen some table plugins, but the data had to be input by hand or pulled from XML. Unfortunately, I've got too many tables to input the data by hand.
Any suggestions?
Thank you!
-Laxmidi