RE: [PHP] MySQL vs. basic text file

Speed Accessability Features Security Performance Simplicity Reusability Indexing Record-Locking To name a few. however, in your situation, it's an existing application which is working great and which no one has any complaints over. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. For your next application, use a database. When it's time for a major upgrade to this one, convert, until then, just leave things the way they are. Let me illustrate a point on the performance/simplicity front. let's say that you need to change the title of an item in a catalog. With a text file: 1.) Open the file 2.) Read the contents of the file until you find the item you're looking for (got help us if it's the last item!) 3.) Parse the line 4.) rewrite the line with the new information 5.) rewrite the file 6.) Close the file ellapsed time: depending on the speed of the computer, typically between 1-5 seconds With a database 1.) Open the database 2.) UPDATE catalog SET title='new title' WHERE item=123 ellapsed time: < 1 second, my benchmarks show usually in the .26-.33 second range -----Original Message----- From: Doug Parker [mailto:drparker@clam.rutgers.edu] Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 4:26 PM To: php-general@lists.php.net Subject: [PHP] MySQL vs. basic text file often i use text files at my data sources, delimted by the "|" symbol. i simply delimit the fields of each line, then when i need to open them, i open the text file, populate an array with each line, then explode the fields for each to get the corresponding values. i use this method for catalogs - and even backend interfaces, for which the client can add/edit/delete products. everything seems to be working fine, and there doesn't seem to be a need for MySQL or anything. i was wondering if there is anything i'm not thinking of that perhaps would push me to favor using php and mysql instead of the plain old text file. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php