why mySQL data export hang inbetween? - php

I do have 1 million datas in my MySQL database and when I export whole data it is getting stuck in between and showing the download box for long time. sometimes it will export without any issues. but if I do multiple table exports then couple of tables may export and others are getting stuck. why is this happening and what will be the work around for the same??
well I am using PhpMyadmin to export

It is most likely due to the data size. The webserver could have timeout issues or run out of memory when exporting big amounts of data.
I suggest exporting one table at a time with phpMyAdmin (in SQL format, avoid using XLS), but if it still fails, you may consider using mysqldump.

What you do is, delete phpmyadmin from your system, write to the developers, and tell them to immediately discontinue development and destory all copies of the source.
You get everyone who has ever installed phpmyadmin to delete their copies too, and then bing the world will be a better place...
It is alas, but a dream.
PHPMyAdmin is a wart on the arse of the universe and should be eliminated; it is a kind of fungus which poisons any data it touches with a painful, lingering death.
Moreover, the developers appear keen to insist that it is actually useful; it has an interface which makes things which fail appear to work, thus fooling the naive user into believing that it has actually DONE what it was asked to do.
Its backups give an overwhelmingly false sense of security; they cannot be considered to be "backups" insofar as one might hope to restore them.

Related

mysql_data_seek versus storing data in array

I have searched for a few hours already but have found nothing on the subject.
I am developing a website that depends on a query to define the elements that must be loaded on the page. But to organize the data, I must repass the result of this query 4 times.
At first try, I started using mysql_data_seek so I could repass the query, but I started losing performance. Due to this, I tried exchanging the mysql_data_seek for putting the data in an array and running a foreach loop.
The performance didn't improve in any way I could measure, so I started wondering which is, in fact, the best option. Building a rather big data array ou executing multiple times the mysql_fetch_array.
My application is currently running with PHP 5.2.17, MySQL, and everything is in a localhost. Unfortunatly, I have a busy database, but never have had any problems with the number of connections to it.
Is there some preferable way to execute this task? Is there any other option besides mysql_data_seek or the big array data? Has anyone some information regarding benchmarking testes of these options?
Thank you very much for your time.
The answer to your problem may lie in indexing appropriate fields in your database, most databases also cache frequently served queries but they do tend to discard them once the table they go over is altered. (which makes sense)
So you could trust in your database to do what it does well: query for and retrieve data and help it by making sure there's little contention on the table and/or placing appropriate indexes. This in turn can however alter the performance of writes which may not be unimportant in your case, only you really can judge that. (indexes have to be calculated and kept).
The PHP extension you use will play a part as well, if speed is of the essence: 'upgrade' to mysqli or pdo and do a ->fetch_all(), since it will cut down on communication between php process and the database server. The only reason against this would be if the amount of data you query is so enormous that it halts or bogs down your php/webserver processes or even your whole server by forcing it into swap.
The table type you use can be of importance, certain types of queries seem to run faster on MYISAM as opposed to INNODB. If you want to retool a bit then you could store this data (or a copy of it) in mysql's HEAP engine, so just in memory. You'd need to be careful to synchronize it with a disktable on writes though if you want to keep altered data for sure. (just in case of a server failure or shutdown)
Alternatively you could cache your data in something like memcache or by using apc_store, which should be very fast since it's in php process memory. The big caveat here is that APC generally has less memory available for storage though.(default being 32MB) Memcache's big adavantage is that while still fast, it's distributed, so if you have multiple servers running they could share this data.
You could try a nosql database, preferably one that's just a key-store, not even a document store, such as redis.
And finally you could hardcode your values in your php script, make sure to still use something like eaccelerator or APC and verify wether you really need to use them 4 times or wether you can't just cache the output of whatever it is you actually create with it.
So I'm sorry I can't give you a ready-made answer but performance questions, when applicable, usually require a multi-pronged approach. :-|

Optimizing and compressing mysql db with drupal

I have developed a news website in a local language(utf-8) which server average 28k users a day. The site has recently started to show much errors and slow down. I got a call from the host saying that the db is using almost 150GB of space. I believe its way too much for the db and think there something critically wrong however i cannot understand what it could be. The site is in Drupal and the db is Mysql(innoDb). Can any one give directions as to what i should do.
UPDATE: Seems like innoDb dump is using the space. What can be done about it? Whats the standard procedure to deal with this issue.
The question does not have enough info for a specific answer, maybe your code is writing the same data to the DB multiple times, maybe you are logging to the table and the logs have become very big, maybe somebody managed to get access to your site/DB and is misusing it.
You need to login to your database and check which table is taking the most space. Use SHOW TABLE STATUS (link) which will tell you the size of each table. Then manually check the data in the table to figure out what is wrong.

What is more expensive for template reading: Database query or File reading?

My question is fairly simple; I need to read out some templates (in PHP) and send them to the client.
For this kind of data, specifically text/html and text/javascript; is it more expensive to read them out a MySQL database or out of files?
Kind regards
Tom
inb4 security; I'm aware.
PS: I read other topics about similar questions but they either had to do with other kind of data, or haven't been answered.
Reading from a database is more expensive, no question.
Where do the flat files live? On the file system. In the best case, they've been recently accessed so the OS has cached the files in memory, and it's just a memory read to get them into your PHP program to send to the client. In the worst case, the OS has to copy the file from disc to memory before your program can use it.
Where does the data in a database live? On the file system. In the best case, they've been recently accessed so MySQL has that table in memory. However, your program can't get at that memory directly, it needs to first establish a connection with the server, send authentication data back and forth, send a query, MySQL has to parse and execute the query, then grab the row from memory and send it to your program. In the worst case, the OS has to copy from the database table's file on disk to memory before MySQL can get the row to send.
As you can see, the scenarios are almost exactly the same, except that using a database involves the additional overhead of connections and queries before getting the data out of memory or off disc.
There are many factors that would affect how expensive both are.
I'll assume that since they are templates, they probably won't be changing often. If so, flat-file may be a better option. Anything write-heavy should be done in a database.
Reading a flat-file should be faster than reading data from the database.
Having them in the database usually makes it easier for multiple people to edit.
You might consider using memcache to store the templates after reading them, since reading from memory is always faster than reading from a db or flat-file.
It really doesnt make enough difference to worry you. What sort of volume are you working with? Will you have over a million page views a day? If not I'd say pick whichever one is easiest for you to code with and maintain and dont worry about the expense of the alternatives until it becomes a problem.
Specifically, if your templates are currently in file form I would leave them there, and if they are currently in DB form I'd leave them there.

flat-file database php application

I'm creating and app that will rely on a database, and I have all intention on using a flat file db, is there any serious reasons to stay away from this?
I'm using mimesis (http://mimesis.110mb.com)
it's simpler than using mySQL, which I have to admit I have little experience with.
I'm wondering about the security of the db. but the files are stored as php and it seems to be a solid database solution.
I really like the ease of backing up and transporting the databases, which I have found harder with mySQL. I see that everyone seems to prefer the mySQL way - and it likely is faster when it comes to queries but other than that is there any reason to stay away from flat-file dbs and (finally) properly learn mysql ?
edit
Just to let people know,
I ended up going with mySQL, and am using the CodeIgniter framework. Still like the flat file db, but have now realized that it's way more complex for this project than necessary.
Use SQLite, you get a database with many SQL features and yet it's only a single file.
Greetings, I'm the creator of Mimesis. Relational databases and SQL are important in situations where you have massive amounts of data that needs to be handled. Are flat files superior to relation databases? Well, you could ask Google, as their entire archiving system works with flat files, and its the most popular search engine on Earth. Does Mimesis compare to their system? Likely not.
Mimesis was created to solve a particular niche problem. I only use free websites for my online endeavors. Plenty of free sites offer the ability to use PHP. However, they don't provide free SQL database access. Therefore, I needed to create a database that would store data, implement locking, and work around file permissions. These were the primary design parameters of Mimesis, and it succeeds on all of those.
If you need an idea of Mimesis's speed, if you navigate to the first page it will tell you what country you're viewing the site from. This free database is taken from the site ip2nation.com and ported into a Mimesis ffdb. It has hundreds if not thousands of entries.
Furthermore, the hit counter on the main page has already tracked over 7000 visitors. These are UNIQUE visits, which means that the script has to search the database to see if the IP address that's visiting already exists, and also performs a count of the total IPs.
If you've noticed the main page loads up pretty quickly and it has two fairly intensive Mimesis database scripts running on the backend. The way Mimesis stores data is done to speed up read and write procedures and also translation procedures. Most ffdb example scripts or other ffdb scripts out there use a simple CVS file or other some such structure for storing data. Mimesis actually interprets binary data at some levels to augment its functionality. Mimesis is somewhat of a hybrid between a flat file database and a relational database.
Most other ffdb scripts involve rewriting the COMPLETE file every time an update is made. Mimesis does not do this, it rewrites only the structural file and updates the actual row contents. So that even if an error does occur you only lose new data that's added, not any of the older data. Mimesis also maintains its history. Unless the table is refreshed the data that rows had previously is still contained within.
I could keep going on about all the features, but this isn't intended as a "Mimesis is the greatest database ever" rant. Moreso, its intended to open people's eyes to the fact that SQL isn't the ONLY technology available, and that flat files, when given proper development paradigms are superior to a relational database, taking into account they are more specialized.
Long live flat files and the coders who brave the headaches that follow.
The answer is "Fine" if you only NEED a flat-file structure. One test: Would a single simple spreadsheet handle all needs? If not, you need a relational structure, not a flat file.
If you're not sure, perhaps you can start flat-file. SQLite is a great app for getting started.
It's not good to learn you made the wrong choice, if you figure it out too far along in the process. But if you understand the importance of a relational structure, and upsize early on if needed, then you are fine.
I really like the ease of backing up
and transporting the databases, which
I have found harder with mySQL.
Use SQLite as mentioned in another answer. There is only one file to backup, or set up periodic dumps of the MySQL databases to SQL files. This is a relatively simple thing to do.
I see that everyone seems to prefer
the mySQL way - and it likely is
faster when it comes to queries
Speed is definitely a consideration. Databases tend to be a lot faster, because the data is organized better.
other than that is there any reason to
stay away from flat-file dbs and
(finally) properly learn mysql ?
There sure are plenty of reasons to use a database solution, but there are arguments to be made for flat files. It is always good to learn things other than what you "usually" use.
Most decisions depend on the application. How many concurrent users are you going to have? Do you need transaction support?
Wanted to inform that Mimesis has moved from the original URL to http://mimesis.site11.com/
Furthermore, I am shifting the focus of Mimesis from an ffdb to a key-value store. It's more sensible Given the types of information I'm storing and the methods I use to retrieve it. There was also a grave error present in the coding of Mimesis (which I've since fixed). However, I'm still in the testing phase of the new key-value store type. I've also been side-tracked by other things. Locking has also been changed from the use of file creation to directory creation as the mutex mechanism.
Interoperability. MySQL can be interfaced by basically any language that counts. Mimesis is unlikely to be usable outside PHP.
This becomes significant the moment you try to use profilers, or modify data from the outside.
You might also look at http://lukeplant.me.uk/resources/flatfile/ for the PHP Flatfile Package.
The issue with going flatfile is that in order to adjust the situation for further development you have to alter a significant amount of code in order to improve the foundation of the system. Whereas if it was a pure SQL system it would require little to no modification to proceed in the future.

PHP/MYSQL - Pushing it to the limit?

I've been coding php for a while now and have a pretty firm grip on it, MySQL, well, lets just say I can make it work.
I'd like to make a stats script to track the stats of other websites similar to the obvious statcounter, google analytics, mint, etc.
I, of course, would like to code this properly and I don't see MySQL liking 20,000,000 to 80,000,000 inserts ( 925 inserts per second "roughly**" ) daily.
I've been doing some research and it looks like I should store each visit, "entry", into a csv or some other form of flat file and then import the data I need from it.
Am I on the right track here? I just need a push in the right direction, the direction being a way to inhale 1,000 psuedo "MySQL" inserts per second and the proper way of doing it.
Example Insert: IP, time(), http_referer, etc.
I need to collect this data for the day, and then at the end of the day, or in certain intervals, update ONE row in the database with, for example, how many extra unique hits we got. I know how to do that of course, just trying to give a visualization since I'm horrible at explaining things.
If anyone can help me, I'm a great coder, I would be more than willing to return the favor.
We tackled this at the place I've been working the last year so over summer. We didn't require much granularity in the information, so what worked very well for us was coalescing data by different time periods. For example, we'd have a single day's worth of real time stats, after that it'd be pushed into some daily sums, and then off into a monthly table.
This obviously has some huge drawbacks, namely a loss of granularity. We considered a lot of different approaches at the time. For example, as you said, CSV or some similar format could potentially serve as a way to handle a month of data at a time. The big problem is inserts however.
Start by setting out some sample schema in terms of EXACTLY what information you need to keep, and in doing so, you'll guide yourself (through revisions) to what will work for you.
Another note for the vast number of inserts: we had potentially talked through the idea of dumping realtime statistics into a little daemon which would serve to store up to an hours worth of data, then non-realtime, inject that into the database before the next hour was up. Just a thought.
For the kind of activity you're looking at, you need to look at the problem from a new point of view: decoupling. That is, you need to figure out how to decouple the data-recording steps so that delays and problems don't propogate back up the line.
You have the right idea in logging hits to a database table, insofar as that guarantees in-order, non-contended access. This is something the database provides. Unfortunately, it comes at a price, one of which is that the database completes the INSERT before getting back to you. Thus the recording of the hit is coupled with the invocation of the hit. Any delay in recording the hit will slow the invocation.
MySQL offers a way to decouple that; it's called INSERT DELAYED. In effect, you tell the database "insert this row, but I can't stick around while you do it" and the database says "okay, I got your row, I'll insert it when I have a minute". It is conceivable that this reduces locking issues because it lets one thread in MySQL do the insert, not whichever you connect to. Unfortuantely, it only works with MyISAM tables.
Another solution, which is a more general solution to the problem, is to have a logging daemon that accepts your logging information and just en-queues it to wherever it has to go. The trick to making this fast is the en-queueing step. This the sort of solution syslogd would provide.
In my opinion it's a good thing to stick to MySQL for registering the visits, because it provides tools to analyze your data. To decrease the load I would have the following suggestions.
Make a fast collecting table, with no indixes except primary key, myisam, one row per hit
Make a normalized data structure for the hits and move the records once a day to that database.
This gives you a smaller performance hit for logging and a well indexed normalized structure for querying/analyzing.
Presuming that your MySQL server is on a different physical machine to your web server, then yes it probably would be a bit more efficient to log the hit to a file on the local filesystem and then push those to the database periodically.
That would add some complexity though. Have you tested or considered testing it with regular queries? Ie, increment a counter using an UPDATE query (because you don't need each entry in a separate row). You may find that this doesn't slow things down as much as you had thought, though obviously if you are pushing 80,000,000 page views a day you probably don't have much wiggle room at all.
You should be able to get that kind of volume quite easily, provided that you do some stuff sensibly. Here are some ideas.
You will need to partition your audit table on a regular (hourly, daily?) basis, if nothing else only so you can drop old partitions to manage space sensibly. DELETEing 10M rows is not cool.
Your web servers (as you will be running quite a large farm, right?) will probably want to do the inserts in large batches, asynchronously. You'll have a daemon process which reads flat-file logs on a per-web-server machine and batches them up. This is important for InnoDB performance and to avoid auditing slowing down the web servers. Moreover, if your database is unavailable, your web servers need to continue servicing web requests and still have them audited (eventually)
As you're collecting large volumes of data, some summarisation is going to be required in order to report on it at a sensible speed - how you do this is very much a matter of taste. Make sensible summaries.
InnoDB engine tuning - you will need to tune the InnoDB engine quite significantly - in particular, have a look at the variables controlling its use of disc flushing. Writing out the log on each commit is not going to be cool (maybe unless it's on a SSD - if you need performance AND durability, consider a SSD for the logs) :) Ensure your buffer pool is big enough. Personally I'd use the InnoDB plugin and the file per table option, but you could also use MyISAM if you fully understand its characteristics and limitations.
I'm not going to further explain any of the above as if you have the developer skills on your team to build an application of that scale anyway, you'll either know what it means or be capable of finding it out.
Provided you don't have too many indexes, 1000 rows/sec is not unrealistic with your data sizes on modern hardware; we insert that many sometimes (and probably have a lot more indexes).
Remember to performance test it all on production-spec hardware (I don't really need to tell you this, right?).
I think that using MySQL is an overkill for the task of collecting the logs and summarizing them. I'd stick to plain log files in your case. It does not provide the full power of relational database management but it's quite enough to generate summaries. A simple lock-append-unlock file operation on a modern OS is seamless and instant. On the contrary, using MySQL for the same simple operation loads the CPU and may lead to swapping and other hell of scalability.
Mind the storage as well. With plain text file you'll be able to store years of logs of a highly loaded website taking into account current HDD price/capacity ratio and compressability of plain text logs

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