Using text files

Anon

I was wondering when exactly to use a text file and when to use a database...I'm writing a few scripts that have simple data structures (i.e. only 2 or 3 values per "field") so I've been using a text file set up like this:
value1|value2|value3
etc.
but in browsing around PHP script sites, I see that a lot of similar scripts use MySQL or some other form of database. is the advantage of using a database only seen when there's a large amount of data or a lot of accessing of the data?

text files seem to work fine since I don't need much more than reading and writing...when are text files not enough?

Anon

The general rule of thumb that I have seen suggested over and over, is if your text file will be more than 100 or so lines of data, a data base should be considered.

You need to consider how often it will be accessed, written to, read from ect.

If the text file is serving your purpose, I wouldn't worry about it, unless you expect it to become quite busy with requests.

I have found you need to screen the data more thouroughly with a text file, than with a data base. With a data base, you just need to make sure that numerical data is numerical, and text is being run through addslashes(), or magic_quotes_gpc is active. With a text file, you need to also be concerned with newline, and carriage returns.