ways to reduce size?

[nakkaya]

while inserting thing to mysql data way is there ways to insert it in a diffrent way to decrease the size of the database like which one takes more space md5 or normal txt

[tshafer]

md5, base64_encode, etc. all take up about 30% more space than text. However, crypt() w/out md5 is a pretty good alternate solution, provided you won't have to de-code the information.

[nakkaya]

is there other alternatives like changeing the database type from myisam or othet?

[altexis]

md5 produces a hash of a text and it always produces a 32 byte length string. Always!

so its up to you. if your texts are shorter that 32 bytes then the cheapest way (in terms of size) is to use pure text.

as for the base64_encode it will always double (not just 30% increase) any text it will find because it will produce two characters for each byte of the text

but nakkaya do you really know what md5 does? I just answered a similar question, so if you are not 100% sure go ahead and read it 🙂
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10226188

[feldon23]

It sounds like he wants to economize on space, not use any kind of encryption. Can you zlib the data and stuff it into mysql?

[nakkaya]

so if mt txt file is lets say 128 bytes so md5 will still produce 32 bytes of code right?

[feldon23]

With md5, it will probably be 256 bytes. heh

[rcook]

MD5 always outputs 32 bytes as altexis said. Remember though, MD5 is a hashing function, thus it is one way only. Once you hash a piece of data, you can not recover the original data from the hash output.