flat text file VS MySQL

nagasea

Right now I had a database store in flat text file.
How good is storing database in the flat text file, how big it can handle ?
Is it using huge server performance by storing in flat text file ?
or i should use mysql ?

ramsore

in a flat text file the information is not organized, so every time you seek for something you check all the file. and when you insert or delete a record you copy the file and write in another file so it is slow. All this you need to handle by yourself.

In a database you organize your data in columns and rows, so retrieval is more easy, and you can create indexes that can help you to search. A program handle this.

bastien

MySQlL is the way to go, the flat file (ff) will run into problems as it grows. it will east up more and more memory as the user list grows...also as more users join the site the slower it will get as each user needs to have the file read.

rachel2004

Originally posted by nagasea
Is it using huge server performance by storing in flat text file ?
or i should use mysql ?

As the others have already pointed out, use the database for your actual storage. As far as using a text file, use that for fast read access (caching). It is faster than querying the database and fetching rows. So:

permenant data --> database
cache --> text file

Some others may disagree and say to use the database for everything, but in situations where you know a lot of your data does not change much, make use of caching.

MarkR

The obvious problems with using a text file:

Searches become slow once text file gets big
File format is brittle - any modifications of format require specialised converters
Easy to make mistakes with failing to escape delimiter characters (I know this can happen in SQL too, but its consequences are much less serious (usually))
Doing arbritary changes is nontrivial and easy to get wrong, specifically
Locking is difficult to get right

Advantages of using a text file

Inserts are of course much faster
As long as it's really small, pretty straightforward to maintain (can use editors etc)
Lower admin overhead to set it up

For me, for nontrivial apps, the SQL database has it.

But it's really a per-application decision. I deployed an e-commerce site recently which used only flat files for storage (not much there anyway).

Mark