How should I store data? Database? Text files? Something else entirely?

Hi all,

Strange question I guess. I'm going to be storing lots of paths to lots of files with some info about the file type, and I want this data to be stored locally. Should I do this in a database, XML maybe, or is there some other storage medium I'm missing? If I should use a database, with what should I create it?

Example:
File1 Path: "C:\..."
File1 Type "material"
File1 SetID "2"

Repeat for File2, etc.

I know it's silly, but I've never had to store more than a bit of data, and in the past I just wrote it to a text file and parsed it back in later. It would seem I've reached the end of that solution's utility.

Thank you for your time,
Backslash

How many filenames are you planning to store? Because your textfile way seems ok to me, unless you're talking about a massive amount of data.

Of course, you could switch to an XML format, to make it more portable. I do like XML. But to be fair, the file would take even more space because of all the markup.

Is the problem in size of that file or access time?

I'm just looking for a solution that will be easy enough to search through. Like if I want to find all the files that belong to set 2. I could just do it line by line in text I guess. Just wondering if there's a better way. :)

In that same direction, how do the big programs do it? (When they have to store a bunch of preferences for instance, or references to a large number of files.)

Thanks for the quick replies,
Backslash

This sort of thing is generally handled through text files. You should just stick with that. XML is a nice way to do it.

In theory it depends on what you mean by "a large number", but I don't think you are likely to cross that boundary.

Sounds good. I really appreciate the quick answers.

Much thanks,
Backslash