I'm having problems with deciding where to store files uploaded by user in my asp.net mvc application.
I've been using asp classic for about 10 years now, and always stored my files on disc at the site, and storing filename and folders in database.
How would you guys approach this problem?
Having them in database, and might get performance issues there? or leave it the way I always done it, and might get problems with "sync" filesystem and db?
I must have some sort of relational info in the database, so I cant store them just on disc
I'm using sql 2005 atm, and I read somewhere that sql 2008 has some sort of datacolumn now that just stores a "pointer" (like the text-datatype) to a file on disc, is that the way to go?
In some way, database is called a database for some reason, so not sure why invent wheel again? :)
Any pointers or ideas would be appreciated, I guess I'm just wondering about problems I might run into if I go with the database-approach
/M
You could use the special App_Data folder to put uploaded files and store the path into the database. If you go with SQL Server 2008 then you could take a look at the FILESTREAM type.
I'm not sure if your web application is load balanced or not, for the file management systems I've built in the past, I have always stored my files on a SAN or a network shared drive so they are accessible to all web/app servers. In addition, rather than storing the files as is, I always change the file name and type before I persist them on the file system (I typically use a GUID as the file name and a random file extension). Lastly, I would store the original file information in the database the files can be moved or copied logically rather than physically.
Related
Does Paperclip scans the files for errors, malicious software, viruses before uploading to database? If no, what are the viable solutions.
And, is it better to first create a separate folder for each user before they upload files and store in their respective folders? What are the merits and demerits of it? Is it possible to specify this with Paperclip?
Thanks
Re viruses etc, this might be useful - Rails / Heroku - How to anti-virus scan uploaded file?
Re storing each user's files in a seperate folder: the conventional way would be to store every FILE in a separate folder, and then link the files to the user via the database (eg a user_id field on the file records). As far as merits and demerits go, besides it not being conventional, one thing to bear in mind would be that if a user's files are stored in a single folder, then if they upload a two files with the same name then the second would overwrite the first (unless of course you put them in separate folders within the user's folder). This could be a good thing or bad thing depending on your requirements.
BTW - a slightly pedantic note: files aren't uploaded to the database (at least not normally) - they are uploaded to a filesystem, and a corresponding record is created in the database. The files don't go into the database (as i say, usually: it is possible to store files as blobs in the DB but it's not good practise and not usual).
I got an app I'm working on that uses static data from a sqlite database to do various things, While I only need read only access to the database, depending on the episode they pick from the first screen I want it to use a different database file and I want the list of available episodes to be updateable on the fly. and I got help to get the list of available episodes updated, and the proper content downloaded and stored in separate folders, So I know I could when the episode is selected delete the sql file in the documents folder and copy in the new one each time and that would work well enough for what I'm trying to do. but it seems like a bit much extra work to have to check for file, delete file, copy in new one. then open it from there each time the user wants to pick a different episode. and I don't want to put all the sql files together as that will be a bigger hassle then the first route especially if this app stays around long enough to have a long list of episodes.
so my question here is: can I get at least read-only access to an sql file that I've downloaded (or one in the bundle for testing) with out having to first copy it to the documents? and if so how would i open the file?
Can I get at least read-only access to an SQL file that I've downloaded (or one in the bundle for testing) without having to first copy it to the documents directory?
Yes. Files in the app bundle are readable (if they weren't, there would be no point in storing files in the bundle).
And if so, how would I open the file?
It's not clear what you're asking here - if you want to perform SQL queries on the file, you should use the sqlite3 library which is available on iOS.
I haven't yet setup version control (GIT) for my development and production environments as a result I am facing trouble syncing everything. My site is powered by Drupal 7.
For example, for a Content type that I created, what exactly is the folder on my development site that I should be uploading. And as far as the content type I created, what folder should I be uploading to the live server?
Another case is where I make changes to 'Text formats' found in admin -> configuration and a couple of other places in admin -> configuration, well, Not sure what folder I should be uploading either.
Thanks much people!
P.S: Feel free to give me some slack for not setting up GIT or version control, lesson learnt but for now I need to get this uploaded
Thanks!
You don't need to upload any files/folders for the situations you've described, all content type and text format data is stored in the database.
Content type data is stored in the node_type table, and text formats are stored in the filter_format table.
Further data relating to both are stored in the variables table as serialised strings.
Hope that helps
I need to store some data files for my blackberry app. These are usually small png files that I download and store locally for performance reasons. Also I need to store an xml file locally.
My question is where are these files supposed to be saved on a blackberry? Is there such a thing as an application's home folder or settings folder in the blackberry filesystem?
What would be the path to such a folder?
This is for blackberry os 4.7 or later.
Thanks!
If it's not a huge amount of data (and by the sounds of it, it's not), take a look at the PersistentStore mechanism. You can store many types of data including native types (String, Integer, etc.) and even byte[] data (for images) using PersistentContent. The nice thing about PersistentStore is that it doesn't require any sort of filesystem access -- it doesn't leave files hanging around -- and if you include a custom class in the persistent store for your app (even a simple subclass of an existing persistible class such as Hashtable), it will automatically delete your persisted data if the app is deleted.
There's no official home folder for your application. In blackberry you can basically read/write just about anything/anywhere (well, you might get a SecurityException/IOException if you'll try do change some files).
You can write to the SDCard/Internal memory using the paths described here.
If you're worried about someone seeing and altering your data there's not much you can do except setting your files and directories as hidden using FileConnection.setHidden(true) but this is very lame since they can still be seen even from the native BlackBerry file browser if the user chooses to show hidden files from the menu.
Edit: You could of course encrypt/decrypt your data but this won't prevent someone from deleting it.
I want to store a large number of images on a server gallery. I can create my own folder for that, but in the default template there is a folder named App_Data. Obviously, I imagine that creators of the template meant for us to store data there. But I can't find a way to open anything in that folder.
Is it intended? Or how do I do that? Or should I make my own folder for that reason?
It is by design. App_Data was meant for data files like sql express DB's files. It is protected so that you can't surf to it and grab files out of it. Put your images in another folder to correct this.