Quick Efficiency Question

NoFear

If I'm going to have a piece of information that may be accessed potentially millions of times a month, is much less efficient to have it stored in the MySQL database and have its value accessed every time the page is open, or does it not make much difference?

For example, if I wanted to set $x=5, I may potentially, in the future, want to change that value. I could always go back into my script and change it. However, if I put the value of 5 into a MySQL table, I would be able to change it via a GUI from a custom-made php script without ever having to go back into the source code and changing it manually that way.

I would like to do this with many aspects of my current project. I want to have an admin control panel that I can modify a number of variables and formulas. Since this is calling on MySQL queries so many more times, however, I'm wondering if it would just be better to hard-code it into the script instead of accessing it from MySQL.

Ideas/Opinions?

pipeten

Hi NoFear,
I think the level to which you take the storing of your variables can be a big factor.
Its really all about :
How often will this variable be modified?
Who will modify user?/coder?/manager?/visitor?
how much data will this variable consist of?
How often will the variable be loaded?

If you talking MILLIONS then surely you would be thinking about speaking to ZEND and their product range.

NoFear

Originally posted by pipeten
Hi NoFear,
I think the level to which you take the storing of your variables can be a big factor.
Its really all about :
How often will this variable be modified?
Who will modify user?/coder?/manager?/visitor?
how much data will this variable consist of?
How often will the variable be loaded?

If you talking MILLIONS then surely you would be thinking about speaking to ZEND and their product range.

Well, let's see. The variables would potentially be modified every couple of months.

Only administrators would be able to modify the value.

It will be just a small amount of data. Probably "tiny int", and maybe a forumula or two, and possibly a date or two. Oh, btw, the date would be changed every couple months for sure.

The variables would be loaded many, MANY times a day.

And what's this about speaking to ZEND?

Weedpacket

First, pipeten is referring you to Zend.

Second, and this is just a thought....

Some may say say that it breaks normalisation, but I call it caching...

Yes, you store the data in the database - that makes it easy to get at and modify on those occasions when you need to do so.

BUT:

Whenever you do update the database contents, you at the same time (re)write a small config file (that uses PHP syntax) which also contains the data (update the database as appropriate, then take all the config in there and write it out - that way the config file is as up-to-date as possible).

When the value is wanted by the site, it include()s the config file and so doesn't need to hit on the db.

So as well as storing x=5 in the database, you also write a PHP file that contains the line

$x=5;

Just a thought.

NoFear

Ok, so if I'm understand this correctly, you're saying that I must write this config file (in order to not hit on the db constantly). Also, if I'm writing and updating the config file manually anyway, then I wouldn't really NEED to store it in the database, correct?

If I were to do that, does php allow the editing of an existing file, or only the appending to it? For example:

$variablename1=somevaluehere;
$secondvariable=anothervalue;
$yetanothervariable=integervalue;

Would php allow me to update the value after "$variablename1=" and then save the file? If not, I'd be forced to rewrite the config file completely, then save it - overwriting the existing config file.

Finally, and most importantly, would I be able to keep this config file secure from being read from a user's browser without using the "<?php" and "?>" tags simply by naming the file "config.php"? In other words, could I only use exactly the code I put in above without the php opening and closing tags, and still keep it secure?

The reason I ask this is because the way I would go about changing the values is by using the explode function at the ";" and at the "=", and the php tags would mess up the values of the array's being returned. If this WOULDN'T work, does anybody have any quick suggestions on how to exclude the tags from the returning arrays?