I am trying to seek everyone's opinion on having a forum on a site with No MySQL database required. I am not too comfortable with that what do you all think about it? Thanks
it will be ok with a few users, but once the need for dynamic data arises, you will immediately feel the effects, flat files are not built for speed
SQL is based on file storage. This means that your info is actually stored on files, however, MySQL manages them. You can use file system, however, you need to make a system to deal with those files (indexing, data locking, relations, etc..) which you will end up with your own database system. You are better off using SQL which is already established and tested. Peace,
Database is always a better option. MySQL is not difficult, you might need a day or 2 to know the basic syntax of MySQL.
It's entirely feasible to create a secure forum script that uses flat files, but using MySQL will make the script far more efficient.
Interesting topic i was thinking about that, securing files would not be difficult all you need to do is put .htaccess file containing one line "deny from all" in directory with your data files. Instead of usual flat files i would serialize and deserialize objects - all data would be stored in objects. This would be - usually - faster then storing data in db. Depending on how you design it you would also need objects lists, which would be used for searching and filtring your data objects. The point is - you will end up writing your own database system
I guess it would be alright as a basic forum, but once you get a few members, it'll just collapse. Plus, all of the users' info will be stored in a file, making it much easier to be accessed (albeit you could retrieve passwords instead of having to reset them). The best idea would be to use a database. There are very few powerful scripts that can be used without databases; They're just not secure enough.
They can be secure, and what do you mean "(albeit you could retrieve passwords instead of having to reset them)." You could do the same thing using a database, it just depends on whether or not you decide to hash it. The files could be stored in a directory under the web root, thus meaning they can only be accessed by the server/script and not visitors.