> That's not really large data -- you're talking about dealing with > 10-300k per request ( it should never go beyond that, because you'd > be chunking stuff off the db for ease of download to the end user ). > > I've been under the impression ( and I'd imagine that others on this > list are as well ) that you're talking about loading 10-100mb data > structures for some sort of parsing or analysis -- which a lot of > people here do. but you're talking about comparatively tiny amounts > of data.
Agreed - and given the price of memory, it is a whole lot cheaper to use some extra memory rather than building complicated micro-optimizations to send the data out byte by byte. Much easier to just program naturally, with considerations like the following: - use Apache2::SizeLimit to kill off a process if it gets too big (but doesn't work under windows) - force your child process to exit after serving the request if you have to do something big (eg process a large image, generate a PDF) Obviously, for the second case, I'm assuming that you would do these things on a small percentage of your total requests, otherwise killing off your child would be a major bottleneck. Clint >
