The core of this taxonomic project is a MySQL database. (SQL stands for Structured Query Language, which is the current standard for manipulating databases, and My is reportedly the name of the MySQL originator's daughter.) MySQL coordinates the data and makes it rapidly accessible to other programs, including the PHP software that delivers it to the Web browser pages that the community sees.

The two databases for this project (one for flatworms, one for gnathostomulids) are similarly structured with 8 tables:

• a central taxonomic table linked to tables for diagnoses, literature citations, free-form notes on literature and other taxonomic data, synonymy data;
• literature-citation tables linked to tables of notes and abstracts;
• geographic tables of geo-sites linked to tables on specific collecting information and cross-linked to taxa;
• and character tables linking taxa to characters and character states and images.

A snapshot of the central taxonomic table:

A snapshot of the biogeographic table:

MySQL uses conventional SQL language for accessing the data, and the commands for listing and inserting or altering data in the tables are relatively few and easily learned. Data entry and display, however, are more easily handled through a scripting language like PHP which can readily execute complex commands that display the data and prompt for entries on Web pages.