flat-file forums

Anon

I have some questions about flat-file databasing for forums.
The website we are creating will allow our users to create their own forums, using software that we have written in PHP. Each forum will be given its own sub-domain and directory. Our software right now just parses tiny text files, one for each topic inside forum folders, so they never get very big but have the capability to become numerous.

Would, say, 1000 of these forums running on a shared server bog down the server resources? How can we test this and see if our software is stressful on the server? Is there a way to see how much information is being processed when a script is run? Is there a more effecient way of databasing this?

Thanks - Alex B.

[deleted]

It depends very much on how larget the file are. The real problem of flatfiles is that (unless you use a very space-wasting method) you always have to read everything leading up to the part you want. at 1k files that no problem, at 10M files it is.

Plus flatfiles are single-user, no two people can post at the same time.

In short, forget using flatfiles for forums. Use a database.

A forum, a FAQ, email notification, what else do you need?