is it ideal to store XML in database and then parse it out later

[php-phan]

Ok, so what i did was create a message / mail type system, but i have noticed a problem cause i am storing information like this

To = User being sent to
From = user sent from
Conversation = XML containing entire conversation from users

Is this a good idea? Does it take php to long to parse all this information? Would i be better off just creating a bunch of entries that hold one message, instead of one entry that holds all kinds :-/

THANKS :-)

[johanafm]

I'm guessing it would be faster to keep one row per message in a conversation. With an integer conversation_id that is indexed, retrieving the whole conversation should be quick

SELECT fields, you, need, FROM message WHERE conversation_id = $conversation_id ORDER BY send_time

But you could profile it by trying both approaches and compare the results.

$start = microtime(true);
// code here
$end = microtime(true);
$time_spent = $start - $end;
echo 'It took ' . $time_spent . ' seconds';

Another approach would be to keep conversations as an array of messages and un-/serialize that, but you lose readability in the db.