Is it faster to do multiple SQL finds on one table with different conditions or to get all the items from the table in an array and then separate them out that way? I realize I’m not explaining my question that well, so here is an example:
I want to pull records on posts and display them in categories based on when they were posted, say within one year, within one month, one week, etc. The nature of the categories results in lower level categories being entirely contained within upper level ones.
Should I do a SQL find with different conditions for each category, resulting in multiple calls to the database, or should I do one search, returning all of the items and then sort them out from the array? Thanks for your responses, sorry I’m new at this.
Typically I would say that you are going to get better performance by letting your database engine do the sorting work. Each database engine has this functionality and typically it can do it faster than you can.
So I would vote to use the database to get your multiple groups rather than trying to do it yourself in memory.