What is the best way to associate a file with a piece of data?

Question

I have an application that creates records in a table (rocket science, I know). Users want to associate files (.doc, .xls, .pdf, etc...) to a single record in the table.

Answer 1

Store the paths in the database. This keeps your database from bloating, and also allows you to separately back up the external files. You can also relocate them more easily; just move them to a new location and then UPDATE the database.

One additional thing to keep in mind: In order to use most of the filetypes you mentioned, you'll end up having to:

• Query the database to get the file contents in a blob
• Write the blob data to a disk file
• Launch an application to open/edit/whatever the file you just created
• Read the file back in from disk to a blob
• Update the database with the new content

All that as opposed to:

• Read the file path from the DB
• Launch the app to open/edit/whatever the file

I prefer the second set of steps, myself.