Best Practice.. Storing an array of data

leatherback

Dear All,

Currently I am working a database, which will store 1000-s of reflectance signatures. These signatures each consist of a few hundred values. I will not need to sub-query the signatures/values, but have a metadata-table for querying.

How would you store the data?
- Each value of the signature in a record
- All values together as an array implode?
- As a serialized array stored into one record field?
- As a file into a BLOB field (Less preferred, since I'd like to be able to display the data?
- any other suggestions?

Hope to hear fro you guys soon,

Thanks guys,

Jelle.

sneakyimp

i'm not sure what a 'reflectance signature' is, but it sounds to me like you're saying you won't need the database to perform any query functions on the sub-values of this array. You should check out the function serialize(). it will take an array or object and turn it into a string which can be stored in a DB. depending on the size of the data stored in this value, you might want to use a TEXT field.

leatherback

Hi Sneaky,

Yes, I mentioned that option. I am basically looking for a good yes/no for any of the methods, and whether I am overlooking an obvious one.