which is better? varchar, file, BLOB

[shreedhan]

Hi
I have a page in which users send messages to each other (something like orkut)
and I have to store the messages.

What will be a good way to store these messages.

I thought of 3 options

First, I can just store the messages in mysql database creating a column for messages like

message varchar (200)

but doing so limits the length of the message to 200.

Second, I can store the messages in a file for each user.
Is there something in PHP like lseek in C ?

Third, I am not sure how to handle BLOB, but I read somewhere it is used to store binary data of large size, so will it be possible to do that for the messages?

I am not sure what the professionals use

Can I get any standard codes for these type of operations ?

Thanks

[Markus]

Why not just increase the amount of characters allowed in the cell?
[php]
message varchar(1000)
[/php]

Using a database, to me, is the most appropriate way to do things.
Keeps everything tody and manageable.

:)

[shreedhan]

Hi

Thanks for your suggestion.
I thought of doing that, but won't that waste much space.
Say, a message is just 10 characters long, then won't it occupy whole 1000 bytes in the disk?

Thanks again