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phpjsondatabase
Pixelcode
Pixelcode

Reputation: 395

Is it bad to use JSON files instead of real databases?

I have no access to create/edit any databases but due to the massive amount of content I need some sort of management system which is why I created my own. Here's how it works:

Each blog post has got its own .php file which loads static parts of the website like the header or the menu bar. But there are many category sites that display previews of the respective posts. It would be sooo annoying having to edit the same preview on 10 sites due to a misspelled word or so. That's why I store those previews (not the full content since there's no need to) in a JSON file.

Is that bad practice? Could this lead to long loading times if the number of previews rose? And could I prevent that by creating multiple JSON files?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 4385

Answers (1)

Skully
Skully

Reputation: 3116

If you are working on a small scale, then using JSON files is fine however it would definitely be beneficial to switch to a database management system whenever possible for storage when it comes to PHP (Or the majority of languages for that matter).

It can be considered bad practice if JSON is used to store large amounts of data or if a lot of data is stored in the same file in which case yes, using multiple JSON files rather than one large one is indeed more viable since the input stream when reading the file does not have to go over as much data.

Upvotes: 6

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