Which is more effecient, storing wiki pages in a flat file, like JSPWiki does? or in a mysql table, like PhpWiki or XWiki do? I am concerned about the efficiently of handling big number of pages and attachments as well. Is a mysql table good enough to keep up with the growth of a wiki?

What do people think of that? – Marion Hanz

There is also another thing to consider: I can write plain-text-files offline (e.g. a group of writer are doing a contest and send in their pieces already wiki-formatted) and upload them at once. They are online within a second and by browsing them or rebuilding the search-index, they are indexed. Other thing is, that folks like me for example are quite dumb when it comes to a database. ;) Usual databases are complex and if a DB is only a one-sheet-table to store the entries, I do not consider it well used. And a third thing: to work with a DB always forces the php-scripts to authenticate when opening it (at least as far as I have learned on my ongoing php/sql-course - take me as a nebie and feel free to correct me) - doesn't that take time? Just my two/three cents… — Freddy 2005-11-09 13:15

I think the DB authentication overhead is really very trivial compared to whole PHP page rendering. Pavel Vitis 2005-11-25 16:10

thanks. good to know :) — Freddy 2005-11-26 10:18

It depends on a lot of things, including what you mean by efficient. Remember a file system is a database, just not an SQL one. — Christopher Smith 2005-11-25 14:45

And don't forget that a database is in the end stored on the filesystem as well, you are just adding one layer between the application and the filesystem.Pavel Vitis 2005-11-25 16:10

However, databases really shine at indexing.

Uploading previously written data files to Dokuwiki indeed is a very strong argument; I can easily imagine some piece of code, generating its logs as Wiki pages, which afterwards are uploaded to e.g. notifiy users of a pipeline of the results of their computating job – even though not impossible with a database, the latter approach would require additional overhead. The same of course is true for uploading large amount s of media files – the possibility of simply scp-ing a directory to the Wiki has proven usefull a number of times. The described method I have been using for a while now, where I'd create a collection of pages on oberservation results locally on my laptop and later on simply upload them to my online Wiki.
The other point of course is the scaling with the number of pages. Even though I am not entirely sure from which point on things really get slow, I am still a bit scared I might reach this point somewhere in the future. At the present time the DokuWiki I run on my PowerBook has approx. 800 Wiki pages (which btw. takes some time trying to recreate the full index); the main problem I have encountered so far isn't so much the number of pages, but rather the amount of material contained within that page. Therefore if you don't explode the size of the individual pages, there appears to be no severe problem. — Lars Baehren 2006-06-13 11:40

Hello, is it possible to create uppercase namespaces? I have tried this:

1. on filesystem level, create data/pages/NewNamespace
2. refresh the wiki in browser, click on the NewNamespace link in sidebar
3. place your cursor at “Edit this page” link, and notice that the link shows ”…?id=newnamespace:start&do=edit…”, the namespace is in lowercase
4. when you edit (create, in fact) the page, sidebar shows both “NewNamespace” and “newnamespace”, both links working

I guess that's because namespaces aren't case-sensitive, but I find that a disadvantage - section names I need for my wiki need to be in alternate case. Or can someone suggest better way to have sections instead of using namespaces as headers?
Andrej Kacian 2006-04-21 13:47 CEST