database or file for name generator ?

[charlie fortune]

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

[John Bokma]

charlie fortune wrote:

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Define "working"

Normally you need locking if multiple writers are possible.

--
John MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
personal page: http://johnbokma.com/
Experienced programmer available: http://castleamber.com/
Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

[NSpam]

John Bokma wrote:

charlie fortune wrote:

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Define "working"

Normally you need locking if multiple writers are possible.

By definition

"it will pick two or three words

from a list and turn them into a name"

is not random, the degree of entropy proposed is open to any brute force
attack.

[Kenneth Downs]

charlie fortune wrote:

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Any SQL database takes care of concurrency for you.

Any system managing data faces the question, do you learn a database like
the ever-popular MySQL, or do you just code up a couple of quick tricks
yourself. It always seems to make sense to code up a few quick routines
because it seems the initial needs are small. But if the site is
successful you will need more and more features and you will keep
"tweaking" your data handling functions. In short, the real question then
becomes, do you learn a database or do you write one? By then learning
seems a lot easier.

--
Kenneth Downs
Secure Data Software, Inc.
(Ken)nneth@(Sec )ure(Dat)a(.com )

[NSpam]

Kenneth Downs wrote:

charlie fortune wrote:

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Any SQL database takes care of concurrency for you.

Any system managing data faces the question, do you learn a database like
the ever-popular MySQL, or do you just code up a couple of quick tricks
yourself. It always seems to make sense to code up a few quick routines
because it seems the initial needs are small. But if the site is
successful you will need more and more features and you will keep
"tweaking" your data handling functions. In short, the real question then
becomes, do you learn a database or do you write one? By then learning
seems a lot easier.

Kenneth

Concur

[NSpam]

NSpam wrote:

Kenneth Downs wrote:

charlie fortune wrote:

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Any SQL database takes care of concurrency for you.
Any system managing data faces the question, do you learn a database like
the ever-popular MySQL, or do you just code up a couple of quick tricks
yourself. It always seems to make sense to code up a few quick routines
because it seems the initial needs are small. But if the site is
successful you will need more and more features and you will keep
"tweaking" your data handling functions. In short, the real question
then
becomes, do you learn a database or do you write one? By then learning
seems a lot easier.

Kenneth

Concur

If one uses a file as a semaphore then go with the low overhead global
file locking solution. If one needs a transaction that requires non
atomic row level locking then go for an RDBMS.
Ah hell, its horses for courses, what information do you need locked and
for how long ?

Get on with it guys, we all know that finding the solution that matches
the problem is the real question <g>

[charlie fortune]

I'm pretty new, and still learning PHP, and this is really an
excersize for myself. I was going to use DBM because it seemed a bit
more sophistocated, but it was the name/value pair thing that made me
feel it was redundant. In a list, there are no 'keys', so I couldn't
even work out how to do it in a databse. Unless I had one field with
an array as the value. But then why bother with a database. Locking
seems suitable to stop two people trying to write concurrently.

[John Bokma]

NSpam wrote:

John Bokma wrote:

charlie fortune wrote:

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Define "working"

Normally you need locking if multiple writers are possible.

By definition

"it will pick two or three words

from a list and turn them into a name"

is not random, the degree of entropy proposed is open to any brute

force attack.

But that doesn't mean it's not random. With a dice you can generate a
random number, yet there are just 6 possibilities.

But I agree that picking 2 or 3 words and glueing them together can be
attacked using a dictionary.

--
John MexIT: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/
personal page: http://johnbokma.com/
Experienced programmer available: http://castleamber.com/
Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

[Chung Leong]

"charlie fortune" <go****@charlie fortune.com> wrote in message
news:8f******** *************** ***@posting.goo gle.com...

I am making a random name generator, it will pick two or three words
from a list and turn them into a name. It seems a database needs to
work with name/value pairs, so am I right in thinking for a simple
list, seperated by line breaks, a file is the most sensible choice ?
If so, what happens if someone else tries to write to the file whilst
I am working with it ?

Why would you need name/value pairs? Won't a simple list of words do? And
why would you write to the file?

[charlie fortune]

Thats what I mean, I just wanted confirmation that a list was the
right way to go. I need to write to the file if I want to add more
words.