Data Storage

Warning: This post is kind of 'technical'.

The principal data for a Ringlink webring is stored in simple text files. The reason why I once chose that solution is that my limited programming skill didn't embrace any more sophisticated methods for storing and accessing data.

An advantage with text files is that it makes Ringlink very portable, i.e. there is no particular system requirement related to the storage of data. But there are disadvantages, too. One disadvantage is that it makes Ringlink inefficient, especially since the code for dealing with stored data isn't very efficient, either.

Now, in practice this is not a problem for the typical Ringlink user, i.e. as long as the number of registered sites and the ring traffic aren't really big. But to those who are interested in building a larger ring hosting service, this kind of efficiency considerations is motivated.

Even if I have no current plans to make any thorough changes in this respect, I'm interested in your advise about which route to take in the future. The use of MySQL databases has been mentioned once in a while. Even if I'm anxious to keep Ringlink portable, I have the impression that a typical web hosting account nowadays includes MySQL. Of course, there is always a possibility to make data storage in a MySQL database an *option* besides the current method.

I suppose there are other suitable database formats as well. Even if I'm a little more comfortable with programming Perl today compared to three years ago, whatever database solution is choosen, it would mean new stuff to learn for me. ;-)

If you have any thoughts to share on this topic, I'd be most grateful.

/ Gunnar