"Pine Marten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote > it is just a small dataset. But how small is small?
A potentially big topic. But heres my purely arbitrary guidelines: Less than 1000 records use a text file (or maybe XML) 1,000 - 100,000 records consider an in memory database or something like gdm (or gadfly in this case) 100,000=1000,000 records small scale or industrial SQL Access, or SqlLite would be good examples over 1,000,000 records go industrial. Postgres, MySql, Firebird/Interbase, Oracle, DB2, Sql server etc There are lots of other issues to consider too, like numbers of tables, indexes, need for stored procedures etc etc. But for simple data storage those rough guidelines should suffice. Caveat: Hardware improvements are changing the rules all the time. If its only simple one-off lookup, a text file could be used for 1,000,000 records on a fast machine nowadays, and if your server has 16G RAM say, then an in-memory database may scale up much farther. My figures assume long term multiple access during the application and average PC hardware. And all IMHO of course :-) -- Alan Gauld Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
