After a little PHP education, my first project (to get my feet wet) is
to
make an employee time-tracking program for our small business.

*** ANY SUGGESTION, THOUGHTS, OR ADVICE WOULD BE WARMLY WELCOMED ***

I'm in my planning stage, and here's my hurdle:
On the time report, we want to see EVERY date under each employee,
and
the string "Absent" for the dates on which the user has no punch
times. (It would also be nice to include day-names on the report.)
Obviously the Time table will only have entries for when people
actually clock in/out, so how do I get the other dates to show on the
report?
Any suggestions?

One guy here suggested just adding a table which includes every date
from here to ...., then just do an outer join.
This seems like it could work well, but I would like to get some input
from those with more experience.

Lastly, if this Calendar table is a good way to go, does anyone have
any
advice on how to go about creating one (preferrably with day and date
values), or a table like this wich they coud just provide a SQL
export of.

While a table dump would get me going quicker, I'd prefer to learn how
to do it myself.
I would then be able to create a form enabling me to periodically
(probably at the turn of our fiscal year) just enter the new ending
date (or date range) to further populate the Calendar table.

~Mo

(NOTE: I originally posted this in comp.lang.php, where it was
suggested that I repost in this group.)