[RESOLVED] Whether to use mysql or not...

The-Master

I have never used mysql in my life before but I am reasonably experienced with PHP. I have always used files to store any data I need and never used mysql. I have more data to store this time and am not sure if it is better to stick with what I know or to try mysql.

What are the advantages of mysql compared to files?

What I have to do is store all the GET data from an image and how many each image has been viewed. There can be quite a large amount of combinations of these variables like below:

image?a=1&b=5&height=50&width=70&im=2

so I would make need to store this "a=1&b=5&height=50&width=70&im=2" and then store how many times it had been viewed.

Should I use a file named "a=1&b=5&height=50&width=70&im=2" and then have the contents as the views or should I learn mysql (don't have a clue with it)

laserlight

What are the advantages of mysql compared to files?

Some of the advantage of relational databases over flat files are:
1. Fast storage, retrieval and sorting algorithms have been implemented for your immediate use.
2. There is no need to come up with a data storage format. You only need to be concerned about the relationship between entities, their dependencies, and various other constraints.
3. Optimisation can be a matter of indexing rather than manually tweaking algorithms.

Note that MySQL is only one relational database management system. PostgreSQL is another, as is SQLite (to some extent).

What I have to do is store all the GET data from an image and how many each image has been viewed. There can be quite a large amount of combinations of these variables like below:

In my (non-so-expert) opinion, a relational database would be appropriate.

The-Master

OK. Thanks. I'll try doing it with mysql.

OK for about the last half hour I have been checking up how to create databases etc.

I think I get it, how to create a database and insert values etc. But I was wondering how I can insert the counter part. So I would insert data into the table say the image was:

image?a=1&b=5&height=50&width=70&im=1

then I would insert that into the "image" column, but how would I check to see if this row (or a row with this value) already existed and then if it did add one to the "count" column in that row.

Thanks.

EDIT: After a bit of research I got it! Thanks!

laserlight

I hope that you did not actually store such strings in rows. You should break it up into at least 6 columns: a, b, height, width, im, count. You would then make the combination of (a, b, height, width, im) the primary key, or make it unique and then provide an auto incremented primary key column.

The-Master

laserlight wrote:
I hope that you did not actually store such strings in rows. You should break it up into at least 6 columns: a, b, height, width, im, count. You would then make the combination of (a, b, height, width, im) the primary key, or make it unique and then provide an auto incremented primary key column.

I just stored it as a string. Why should I break it up? It is the whole image that I want to see how many times it has been viewed not the individual parts.

laserlight

Why should I break it up? It is the whole image that I want to see how many times it has been viewed not the individual parts.

It is possible that breaking the multi-valued field up may serve no purpose (i.e., it is not actually multi-valued). But suppose you decide to ask the question: how many images viewed had a height of 50 and a width of 70? With a single field, answering this question takes some work (you need to do string comparison with wildcard matching). By breaking the multi-valued field up, answering this question is trivial.