Re: Pl/PgsSQL array

On Thu, 2005-07-07 at 08:30 +0100, Richard Huxton wrote:
> Ben-Nes Yonatan wrote:
> > Richard Huxton wrote:
> >
> >>> Can anyone tell me if Pl/PgSQL can support a multi dimensional array
> >>> (of up to 5 levels top I guess) with about 100,000 values?
> >>> and does it stress the system too much?
> >>
> >> I can't imagine it being wonderful - you probably want a different
> >> procedural language. Or a different approach come to think of it - can
> >> I ask what you are using 5D arrays with 100,000 values for?
> >
> > Indeed you can my good sir :)
> >
> > Im going to insert into one table a list of about 3.5 million products
> > each day, thouse products also contain data about their own categories.
> >
> > Now I receive all of this data every day and I need to delete all of the
> > previous data each time and insert the new one.
> > In order to create the category table (tree table) I want to create an
> > array out of the categories information at the products and then insert
> > it into the the categories table (the tree :)).
>
> I would be tempted use an external perl script to receive the data and
> insert it into the database, building the categories tree as it did so.
>

"Perl and multidimensional arrays" eq "Yikes!"

I just beat down a three dimensional hash yesterday, and it was a
nasty blood fest. I almost considered rewriting the application in
PHP but figured I had enough invested to just push through. I
think my Programming perl by O'Reilly is getting too old in the
tooth, and I don't write in perl often enough to know the CPAN
modules very well.

If this is a fresh project, I personally would use PHP it dead
easy to manipulate arrays. As a mater of fact almost everything
I do in PHP uses arrays, it's the main reason I use it. The main
problem I have run into is the 8MB data limit, but that can be
changed and if run as a serial processor, it may not be a problem.