Can I use Google Sheets as a database for a simple PHP calendar?

Other Questions Google Sheets
1

Hey everyone! I’m new to PHP and I’m trying to make a basic calendar for my website. It’ll show a timetable with free slots and appointments. The data is pretty simple - just month, day, hour, talk name, and description.

I was thinking maybe I could use Google Sheets instead of MySQL because I’m still learning about databases and don’t feel ready to create a fancy admin interface or worry about security too much.

The cool part is, Google Sheets lets anyone edit the table easily. But I’m not sure how to hook it up with my PHP page. I know that Sheets can export data as CSV or XML. Could I use fgetcsv to pull the data?

Here’s an idea of what I’m aiming for:

$data = fgetcsv($file);

function find_talk($month, $day, $hour) {
  global $data;
  foreach ($data as $row) {
    if ($row[0] == $month && $row[1] == $day && $row[2] == $hour) {
      return $row[3];
    }
  }
}

Would this method work well for a small site that gets less than 50 views a day? Any advice or better methods would be much appreciated. Thanks!

2

Using Google Sheets as a database for a simple PHP calendar is certainly feasible, especially for a low-traffic site. While your CSV approach could work, I’d recommend leveraging the Google Sheets API for more robust functionality. It allows real-time data access and eliminates the need for manual exports.

To implement this, you’d need to set up OAuth2 authentication and use the Google Client Library for PHP. This method provides better security and scalability compared to parsing CSV files. You can fetch data directly from the sheet, update it programmatically, and even implement basic access controls.

Remember to implement proper error handling and consider caching mechanisms to optimize performance and reduce API calls. While this approach suits your current needs, be prepared to transition to a more traditional database system as your project grows in complexity and traffic.

3

I’ve actually done something similar for a small community group website. Google Sheets can definitely work as a makeshift database for your calendar project. It’s user-friendly and perfect for your current skill level.

One thing to keep in mind though - fetching data every time someone loads the page might slow things down. What I did was set up a cron job to pull the data from Sheets once an hour and save it as a JSON file on the server. Then my PHP script just read from that local file.

This approach worked well for us, handling about 100 daily visitors without a hitch. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s simple and gets the job done. As your site grows, you’ll probably want to transition to a proper database setup, but for now, this could be a good starting point.

4

hey john, google sheets can work as a simple db for ur calendar. u can use the google sheets api to fetch data directly, which is better than csv. it’s ez to set up and works great for small sites. just remember to cache the data to avoid hitting api limits. good luck with ur project!