How to store images? 1

[wtotten]

I have an application that tracks animals for a Humane Society. There are 10-20,000 animals in the system. They want to be able to take pictures of the animals and add them to the tables.

Do I store the image in a table, or do I store a link to the file's location on the disk? I have never stored anything like this in any of my tables. They will want to view the image on the screen and on some reports the image prints as well.

I am asking for anyone to share their experience with me in having done this.

Bill

 

[Mike Lewis]

Hi Bill,

Do I store the image in a table, or do I store a link to the file's location on the disk?

Both approaches would work. But by far the better method is to use the table to store the file's location, and keep the actual pictures in separate files on your disk. Storing pictures in a table is possible, but it's very inefficient, leading to bloated files and other difficulties.

In fact, if you use a dedicated directory to hold the pictures, and if the images' filenames follow a predictable pattern, you don't need to store anything in the table. For example, if the filename is the same as the Animal ID (or whatever you call the main identifier for the animal), then you can derive the full path and file name programmatically.

To display the picture, use the Image control. Set its Picture property to the path/filename. And that's all there is to it.

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[wtotten]

Thank you Mike. that's exactly what I was looking for and the file naming idea is perfect!

Bill

 

[Mike Lewis]

Glad it was useful, Bill. Good luck with the project.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[NasibKalsi]

One small addition. Since you have large number of files(images). Break them into chuncks of ~1000 files per directory. When accessing, it will locate faster. For example, all animals starting with letter 'a' put them under images\a, starting with 'b' store the images under images\b, etc.


Nasib

 

[wtotten]

Thank you Nasib.