using a flat text file as a mini database

scuzzo84

I want to make simple apps, a guest book or a lil blog for starters as I am a newb to php and I wanted to know if instead of using mysql, would starting off with being able to save data to a flat text file be as easy or easier? I know its not as featureful, but me personally I kinda find using a flat file better in some ways , anyways if I wanted to get into this what should I research for php using flat text files for storage?

edwardsbc

Assuming you have appropriate permissions on the web server to read and write files, it is pretty easy in PHP. See the file() function along with explode() and implode(). They make it pretty easy to load a flat file into an array and then breakup each row into component fields.

Not as nice as a true RDBMS, but workable for very small projects.

Dada78

Are these flat files searchable as with a search form? This might be a solution I might be interested in as well.

laserlight

would starting off with being able to save data to a flat text file be as easy or easier?

It depends on the kind of data you are talking about. Considering that you are looking to include search functionality, using an existing database engine may be easier (and better) than constructing your own flat file database engine.

You might take a look at SQLite, which places its databases in a single file. SQLite support is provided by the SQLite functions, and also by the PDO extension.

Dada78

I have MySQL but for what I am wanting to do I don't think I need it. I bascily just have links I need to be able store and search for. Then have people search from certain I.E. State Park or region etc and it show a list that matches thier critera and then they click on one and it takes them to the page I am made for it. Would a flat file being easier since all it need it is to store text links?

thorpe

If you plan on searching this data a database would more likely be a much simpler solution.

jazz_snob

I find files very useful. And with a little knowledge of *nix commands (like grep, awk and sed) you can do some pretty cool stuff as far as searches, etc. For example, I have some csv data that contains the date and I can find all entries matching a given $date w/

$results =array();
$cmd = "cat myfile.csv | awk /$date/";
exec( $cmd, $results, $retval );

It really comes down to what you need to be able to do w/ the information. I have some pretty elaborate stuff set up based on soley flat files and directory structure (each record is a directory, containing flat files that contain different parts of the data for that record).

Dada78

Yea my search critera for what I need isn't that in depth so I am think a flat file might be just enough.

laserlight

I bascily just have links I need to be able store and search for. Then have people search from certain I.E. State Park or region etc and it show a list that matches thier critera and then they click on one and it takes them to the page I am made for it. Would a flat file being easier since all it need it is to store text links?

The thing is, unless you are absolutely sure that your requirements are really so minimal, you may end up duplicating a minimal database engine for your flat file database. This is going to take some work, and chances are the end result would be inferior to an existing database engine. This is why I recommend SQLite in the cases where MySQL would be overkill.

And with a little knowledge of *nix commands (like grep, awk and sed) you can do some pretty cool stuff as far as searches, etc.

Unfortunately that means that your script becomes platform dependent, and there is no guarantee that access to external programs will be allowed on a given server.