XML or Database

[Orexis]

Hello all,I'm new on these forums and subscribed because I'm planning on building a website.I know how HTML works and have basic understanding of XML (I think) My problem : I'm going to build a website about dogs where people must be able to search by certain characteristics (like dog size, child friendly, long-short hair).Now I don't know if I would make it with XML or use a database (access or Oracle). There are no more then 500 breeds so not that big but maybetoo big for XML.I know it would be easy to do with query's in a database but would prefer to do it in XML IF possible.Thanks in advance for all the feedback

[justsomeguy]

It is possible to do it in XML, but why would you want to? It would seem that it would be a simpler (and probably faster) system if it used a database.

[Orexis]

Never worked with a database before for a webpage.So any advice on wich one I should use or is access good enough ?Also is PHP a good 'language' to get data from a database or you suggest something else ?Thanks

[justsomeguy]

I prefer PHP, it's my server language of choice. I would stray away from Access though, you may run into some speed and stability issues. You mentioned Oracle, which would work, or a free alternative would by MySQL. Both of them can handle large amounts of data with high marks for speed and stability.

[Synook]

I would stray away from Access though

I would run... Access is horrible in multi-user environments.

[kitsam]

I would run... Access is horrible in multi-user environments.

I think so.As my knowledge, Microsoft Access Database (the filename is *.mdb) is limited to be accessed by 10-20 (depends on which windows OS) clients connection simultaneously.But the advantage of Access is easy to use and manipulate.

[justsomeguy]

Access might have a more user-friendly interface to create databases and tables, but when you're writing SQL queries in a PHP script it's all the same. It's simply not a suitable database when there are better alternatives available. It is slow and unstable, it doesn't matter how easy it is to set up.

[Orexis]

Thanks all for the help.I downloaded MySQL and PHP so time to start learning now

[Synook]

Don't forget to download a server (such as Apache) as well! Or else you won't be able to view the pages you create, except through the command line.

[aspnetguy]

I would run... Access is horrible in multi-user environments.

Access was never originally designed for web environments. It is for small company databases but even then I don't know why anyone would want to use it. I spent a few days working in access a while ago when we were migrating one of our clients from their "custom" access database to our web-based, MSSQL, CRM. It was a few days too many.

[AElliott]

It would definitely be faster to use an RDBMS, they are built to perform do things like input/output/indexing/comparisons in the optimal way they can think of, and so to try and compete you would end up building your own RDBMS around your flatfile anyway, and it would take a lot of work to make anything approaching the existing products.I'm very much for the open source MySQL, but there is also PostgreSQL which has some more support among the heavy database users (since MySQL 5 does lack some features, even if the gap is closing very quickly).