Help with parsing large amounts of data

[codeguru]

I am trying to parse up to 500 large text strings being pulled out of a database for up to 500 individual items.

If the any of the items are found they need to be replaced with a new string. (using eregi_replace() for this)

Currently the script is taking a lot of time to run and I want to try and speed it up.

Questions:
Is it faster to:
-select all the data out of the database
(using MySQL if that helps) I want to
parse into a huge array and then do
all the manipulation on the data within
php and then do a bunch of sql updates
to the database
--OR--
-select the data one row at a time do the
same php processing as above and then do
an update....repeat process....
???????

Also, I've read some things on how to show a "page loading..." message during the executiono f this script but nothing seems to work for this situation.

If any code samples are helpful please specify what you need to see.....otherwise I think I've spelled my issue out pretty well.

Thank you in advance for any help.

[Anon]

Of the two options, the first is almost certainly the faster. The second requires hundreds of database accesses; and each time while the database is working, the script has to wait for it. Basically, it means a lot more interprocess communication.