Which Database to use ?

[Anon]

I am new to PHP. I have hosted by web site at F2S.com. They give full PHP support. They also provide support for Postgresql.

I want to start using database but am confused whether to use Postgresql or MySQL.

Can someone help me decide.

Best Regards. Thanks to all.

Jayan Chandrasekhar,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
www.delphitoday.f2s.com

[Anon]

It is really dependent on what data you are going to be storing and what level of support you want for various things like sub selects, transactions, large objects, etc. Speed can also be an issue in some cases. Tim Perdue wrote a nice column called "MySQL and PostgreSQL Compared" (you can find it in the columns section 🙂 and I suggest you start there. It gives a good overview of strengths and weaknesses from a real website perspective. It should help you decide which one to try.
You will also want to note which versions your host offers for each database as there are new features coming with each new release of the product that could sway you one way or another.

Hope that gets you started.

Tim Frank

[Anon]

If the postgresql is 7.0.2, I would highly recommend it. 6.5.3 had some issues with buggy parsing that could cause some headaches with fancy where clauses that seem to have been taken care of with 7.0.2.

As for mySQL, it's pretty good for simple table storage and recall, but if you want triggers, subselects, stored procedures et. al. it's not the right database for you.

Personally, I'd probably use gdbm for simple stuff rather than mysql, it's fast, simple, and great for single key hash table databases.

If you do use postgresql, avoid persistant connections. On smaller or poorly configured machines, you can run out of backends quickly.