Re: Re: Upload File (binary files?)

At 11:07 PM +0200 5/11/06, Jochem Maas wrote:

I think you make interesting points Tedd, it's given me stuff to think about anyway. leveraging a Db for image storage can have advantages but implementing it correctly takes a stack more knowledge and more work to do it correctly, therefore the recommendation for those starting out in php should, I feel, remain 'use the filesystem' - if only because understanding and using the filesystem properly is one of the foundations of the craft. no?

For beginners, I would have to agree because, as you said, they already have already been exposed to the concept of the "file system". But, at some point (and I forgot to mention this in my previous post) all programmers start thinking in collections of data and a dB becomes a well suited solution (record holder and organizer) for that. As such, all data connected to a record, including images, are "better" suited if organized and saved in one place. With regard to problems in display, speed, storage, and such -- those are just the temporary growing pains of the industry and will pass. Remember Gopher? The Internet has come a long way since then. I suspect that in five-ten years, people will arguing "You still use the file system for storing those?"

with regard to the refresh issues I believe this can be dealt with by outputting correct last-modified headers with the image data (which can also be stored in the DB ;-)

Interesting -- but, I had problems with different browsers -- some worked and some didn't. So, I resorted to the "file system" for the storage for both thumbnail and normal size images. I was spending too much time trying to fix it for all main browsers, so I took the easy-way out. It works (I think) see: http://ancientstones.com At least I put it up for review in css and through BrowserCam.

with regard to increasing speed: what I often end up doing, mostly because I allow dynamic resizing of images (i.e. the thumbnail and the 'large' image come from a single stored source) is to use a memory based cache where previously outputted images are stored for as long as possible (i.e. until the source changes or the server is restarted or the cache is full or whatever).

I did the same thing including merging a copyright on the image. I believe that saving all related data in a dB is really the "right" way to go. From there, you can do anything you want with the data. tedd -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://sperling.com