Use .csv files as data source?

[Joseph_Sliker]

Hi;

I am pretty comfortable/happy with using MySQL as a data source, but I was wondering if it is difficult to simply upload and use .csv files as a data source. I have never done this before in an online/website environment. It seems like it might be rather efficient in certain respects. Can SQL type queries be run against a .csv file?

Just wondering....

Thanks.

[traq]

Problem with text files is you'd have to read in the entire file and manipulate it in php. Small files might be fine, but larger files quickly become unmanageable. Using SQL-style queries is something you would have to develop yourself as well (there might be some existing projects you could use, but I don't know of any).

Why are you looking for an alternative to MySQL?
If you're looking for less setup/ more portability, have you considered SQLite?

[cretaceous]

It's easy enough to upload the csv and parse it into sql tables (of course performing data checks during input) - then you get the best of both worlds

[Weedpacket]

I would agree with the others; CSV files work well enough as a data transfer format, for importing into a database, but I wouldn't actually build the database on them.

If you want to skip having a separate DBMS managing your database, I'd go with SQLite as well.

Be aware that having multiple processes writing to a SQLite concurrent database is explicitly contraindicated (see the last paragraph of Appropriate uses for SQLite). Multiple concurrent reads however is fine, so potentially-complex lookups are supported.

On the other hand, exactly the same non-concurrent writes situation arises with CSV files.

On the gripping hand, handling concurrency is one of the functions of a DBMS.