Saving the images in database

Question

What is the best technique to save images in the mysql database.Should I save images as blob data or save it in directories.The images will be showed every time the user visits his or her profile. -Thanks in advance.

Please visit my [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9141116/996493) — Lucifer, May 19 '12 at 15:59

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered May 19 '12 at 15:58

8

The best technique would be to save them in the file-system and save their paths in the database.

The database is meant for data, the file-system for files.

The technique I used in the past to make sure there are no duplicates was to hash the contents of the file and save it as the result, so I get something like:

42efb15825666918118ba72128195246dbae4976.jpg

The actual name is saved in the database. This was, the chance of having duplicates is negligible.

answered May 19 '12 at 15:58

Madara's Ghost

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if you upload the same file another time, you will have the same hash, no ? – Ahmed Laatabi May 20 '12 at 00:00
Exactly, so it prevents duplicates. – Madara's Ghost May 21 '12 at 15:08

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 19 '12 at 16:01

4

The best technique is what Truth said, in addition, to guarantee that your images will have a unique name, use the current timestamp to rename them in your directory.

answered May 19 '12 at 16:01

Ahmed Laatabi

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I used the user_id as their profile pictures name in the directory....thanks for the help – Tanbir Ahmed May 19 '12 at 16:13

Saving the images in database

2 Answers2