GIF or JPEG files for ads are stored in /ads. References look like
<a href="/adserver/adhref.tcl?adv_key=pfizer"> <img src="/adserver/adimg.tcl?adv_key=pfizer"> </a>
If the ad server gets confused, it tries to always serve up something to
fill the space. It looks for [ad_parameters DefaultAd
adserver] and [ad_parameters DefaultTargetUrl adserver].
If it can't find those, it notifies the site administrator to define
them.
The major feature of the adserver not covered by the book is that there
is a notion of ad groups. For example, if there are four ads that you'd
like a user to see in sequence, you can make them part of a group and
then make all the pages in a section of a site reference that group.
The page need only call adv_ad_from_group with the
group_key as an argument and it will get back a reference
to the next appropriate ad from that group.
-- this is for publishers who want to rotate ads within a group create table adv_groups ( group_key varchar(30) not null primary key, pretty_name varchar(50) ); -- these will rotate in the order spec'd (ascending, e.g., 0, 1, 2...) -- unless rotation_order is always NULL or is the same integer -- in which case the order will be determined by however Oracle feels like -- giving us the rows create table adv_group_map ( group_key not null references adv_groups, adv_key not null references advs, rotation_order integer, primary key (group_key,adv_key) );