Also... Once the information in the file is in memory whether it's in the form of a query as produced by this cfx or in the form of a cffile action="read" variable it takes up the same amount of memory on the server. Whether or not this will be an issue depends on a large number of variables. How how frequently pages are requested (number of users won't tell you this in any meaningful way), how long each page takes to process, how much physical RAM the server has and how large its swap-file is. Ideally you don't want the server using a swap file, but it happens. If you're cacheing all the data in a persistent scope, that will increase memory useage overall, although processing the data on each request will increase execution time for repeated requests, so there's some tradeoff there and you may find that one or the other works well enough to be useable at least, but not both.
If it turns out that this cfx tag is fast enough to produce usable request times under load on a shared server, then as long as you can find a host who'll install it for you, you've got your answer. :) hth Isaac Original Message ----------------------- Here's a CFX tag that imports any type of delimited files and converts them to a CF query. It's mighty fast.. http://www.insapi.com/products/development_tools.cfm#cfx_textimport Perhaps it is something that would be useful? -Ryan -----Original Message----- From: B G [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 12:19 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Querying a Text File vs An MS Access Table I am building an application where users can upload a comma delimited text file to a unique user directory then retrieve the data from it for later use. The structure of the file will be pre-defined and the users must follow that format. Field names are included in the first row. I had intentionally decided not to import that data from the text file into a table because of the file size. Reading the contents of a file with CFFILE puts the entire contents into a variable which takes up memory. 100 users all working with 10 meg files at the same time could cause a problem. But I am finding that no host will offer to support a text ODBC connection. I even had one tell me it couldn't be done. Also, a few have stated that querying a text file is too flaky to be considered reliable. Has anyone had any experience similar to this? Am I worrying about using too much RAM unnecessarily? Perhaps a more efficient way to get the contents of the text file other than CFFILE? Thanks! BG _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
