Fast database as an alternative to PHP array

Question

I have an array containing my reference variables, and in my scripts I need to catch one variable or two. In the current system, I have to include the entire array (and its elements) to use one element. It seems that using a database is better for two reasons:

1. One record is read instead of the entire array
2. Variables can be easily edited

However, there is a major drawback for using database: on every php run, we need to make a connection to the database.

Since simple database systems like SQLite has no server, persistent_connection is not like advanced database servers like mysql.

In action,

$db = new SQLite3('mysqlitedb.db');

takes more time (and consumes more resources) than

include 'array.php';

Is there any solution for having a basic database system (with fast connection) to be a replacement to PHP array and include file?

In other words, I need a simple database system with fast connection comparable with fopen. However, even CDB which is incredibly fast, is not fast enough on initial connection.

Answer 1

By including the static array file you are essentially doing what caching systems do when they pull a result from a database. You are loading a pre-digested result directly from disk.

All database connections have some overhead (certainly more than including a rendered file). You use a database when you need operational maintainability for your data, but this comes at the cost of application overhead.

If you are not worried about persistance of the data, you may want to look at using a caching system like APC, memcached or redis.