Re: text files instead of mySQL

M.E. Suliman wrote

Is it possible to convert a PHP script that writes and pulls data from a mySQL database to use text files / database instead. Yes it is but you could have a job on your hands depending on the complexity of the script. Personally I favour PHP's serialization capabilities for flat file work - you can take pretty much any object or array (or an array of objects, you can nest them as much as you like) and use serialize() to turn it into a string. You can then save the string in a text file, and later on re-read it and unserialize it to get your original data structure back.

However, if the script you are investigating makes heavy use of SQL join syntax you could have a very nasty job on your hands coming up with data structures that can be "queried" in the same way without performance becoming an issue. Simon