A page is sending AJAX call to server and should get item info in response. The array to look-up/return is a rather big one and I can’t hold it in the PHP file to accept the request. So, as far as my knowledge and experience tell, there are 2 methods:
- Access database for each request.
- Store items in files (e.g. “item12.txt”) and send contents to the user.
My C experience says that opening and closing a file takes much more system time than the rest of the program. How is it in PHP? What is the preferred method (most importantly, resource-wise) – file system or database? Is there any other way you would recommend (e.g. JavaScript directly loading the file with variable array from the server for each request)? Maybe there’s some innovative method lying around you’re aware of?
P.S. On the server-side a number only will be accepted, so no worries regarding someone trying to access files in the server or trying to do some fancy stuff on database.
Sockets
Depending on how many requests you will be handling, you could look into socket connections.
Sockets gives you 2 way communication between the client and the server, which would allow you to do interactive things, as needed.
Socket tutorial 1
Socket tutorial 2
Node.js
node.js is the new kid on the block. You write your own socket webserver, and use javascript to communicate with it. This is a great alternative to Ajax, as it’s much more efficient and reliabe.
node.js can be run alongside PHP, and only be used for ajax-like calls.
node.js
node.js socket turotial