database vs files

[alaios]

Hi there i am creating a new site and i want the banner to be changing dynamically. I was thinking that i can write a script that reads the image files from the folders and picks up one randomly.
Another way is to implement that using a conenction to a database. What u think is much faster? Is the multiple connections to the database reason for bottlenecks?

[raf]

Well, my 2 cents:
- images should not be stored in a db. Only the images adress shoudl be stored inthere
- if you just need a random select, then use a randomizer function in your server side script.

So you don't need a db to store the images, and you don't need it to get the random imageselect.

<<<< What u think is much faster? >>>>
The file sollution. Not the db sollution.

<<<<Is the multiple connections to the database reason for bottlenecks?>>>>
I don't quite understand what this has to do with it.
MySQL is real fast for selectquerys and it ca easely deal with over 200 concurrent threads, so i don't thaink that the number of concurrent users would be a problem.

[alaios]

thx

<<<< What u think is much faster? >>>>
The file sollution. Not the db sollution.


Axa...Can u support your opinion? It is much more important for me to learn the reason rather than the answer

Thx a lot

[raf]

it's quite evident that if you can cut out the dbconnection, the query-execution, the recordset-sending and the recordsetprocessing , that you then will gain some executiontime.
And you wount be using up ay db-resources or bandwidth to get your data.

I mean, suppose you have 7 images. If you just store the images like
/inc/7.gif
/inc/6.gif
...
then all you need to do to select and display a random image

echo('<img src="./inc/' . rand(1,7) . '.gif" alt="My sites banner!" width="795" height="32" />'); 

rand --> http://www.php.net/rand

Or if you need more parameters per image (like the alt, url etc, then you can use array_rand
Check out http://be.php.net/function.array-rand

There is a usercommens (in fact, the most recent one, talking about luck, that does exactly what you would need then)

/*jpinedo
02-Nov-2003 07:15 
An array of arrays example:*/

$banners[0]['imagen']="imagen0.gif";
$banners[0]['url']="www.nosenada.tal";

$banners[1]['imagen']="imagen1.gif";
$banners[1]['url']="www.nose.tal";

$banners[2]['imagen']="imagen2.gif";
$banners[2]['url']="pagina.html";

$banners[3]['imagen']="imagen3.jpg";
$banners[3]['url']="../pagina.php";

$id_banner = array_rand($banners);

echo  "Archivo:--".$banners[$id_banner]['imagen']. "<br />\n";
echo  "URL:-----".$banners[$id_banner]['url']. "<br />\n"; 

The only reason to choose for the db-sollution would be if you will be replacing the images (new images with a new name) frequently, and if you would do this through a web-interface or another tool that both does the file-operation + that automatically updates the db.
Then the 'loss' in performance will be acceptable because it would be compensated by the gain in maintenance-time you need to spend on an image-swap.