Caroline, A third option is to hardcode the options by putting them in an initializer for a string array. One of the main criteria you need to ask yourself is "How often are these values likely to change?" If they may change often (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) then a database might be the best bet. Otherwise, property files are a good way to go. However, if they are likely to never change, then I think you might avoid some overhead and potential maintenance problems by just hardcoding them in one of your classes. This also avoids having to add code to read the values and possibly parse them into substrings.
Regards, Richard -----Original Message----- From: Caroline Jen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 1:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Keep Them In the Database Or In the Properties File? I have to prepare many drop down lists for visitors of the website to make selections. For example, I have the 51 states of the United States prepared like Virginia=VA, ....., etc. Do I keep the data in a database or in a properties file? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
