Please bottom post, and group reply so that everyone can help and be helped.
Dermot Paikkos wrote:
More likely it's me that's confused...
Perhaps I didn't give all the details in the earlier mail. The user will only enter their surname. The script would then search the file for a match. For those odd souls how share a common surname they would have to select their firstname. I would then use the ID for all other references to that user which would avoid having to ask them again if they which Chris Devers or Christine Devers.
This still shares the same problem that Chris mentioned earlier, what do you do in the case of duplicates? My first job out of college I worked for a small web firm, when I started there were a total of 12 employees.... 2 Brian Millers. Middle initials... J and JS ... Went to the same college, both played sports (though different), lived in the same apartment complex, were both Perl programmers!!!!!! One of the keys is that to have an effective login system you *must* come up with a *unique* identifier.
This is FAR more important than the tiny boost you will get by varying your implementation backend.
The actual program is a clock-in system for the staff which I want to do in mod_perl. I thought a DBM file would be the fastest way to access the user list. I need to check that the user is in the list before I add their clock-in time to their own 'private' flat file which records the time they started, go to lunch ..etc.
I would suggest not reinventing this wheel.
If you must, I would scrap the flat text files and opt for at least a simple SQL database, even if it is SQL lite. You will soon thank yourself, and anyone maintaining it after you won't ask for the address of your first born.....
From what your saying I am not going to get a massive performanceboost by using a DBM file. Should I just stick to using a flat file and extend it as you say?
Dp.
You won't. But you shouldn't. Use a DB, or look for a suitable alternative online, and spend your tuits working on something that hasn't been written hundreds of times.......... At the very least start with an application framework where user/session management has already been written.
http://danconia.org
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