Cash or carry? (Cache or query preference files....)

[jetta_gt]

Ok, so it's a corny joke.. 😃

Here's the deal, I am building a pretty cool content managment system, WAP and RSS output, session-based security, image and file uploads, the whole works... It's pretty much done, the last thing to do is build the preference system. Each installation has it's own prefs (about 100 yes or no options, some short strings also...)... Right now i just store them in a php file call variables.php and edit it by hand as i test... obviously this will not fly for the final version... So here is my question, should I cache the pref file in a static php file each time it is updated or grab the values from the DB. I have the skills to do either, but what are the pros and cons of each approach. Hopefully this is an interesting question and we all learn some stuff...

Cheers!

[nnichols]

Personally, I prefer to use a static php file that has a list of constants and include it in every page.

When testing under load I found it slightly quicker (microsecs) than grabbing from the db.

I'm sure there will be plenty of people have different opinions on this. It is probably worth trying a few different approaches and load testing to see which gives better performance - though I should imagine the differences will be negligible.

Hope this helps 😉