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google-app-enginegoogle-cloud-storagegoogle-cloud-datastoreblobstore

Why am I seeing both Blobstore and Datastore viewer in the admin panel?

I have a GAE PHP app on my local machine.

I use move_uploaded_file() or file_put_contents() to store data in the datastore.

And I see the files in both Blobstore viewer and Datastore Viewer as shown. Why and what is the difference? I thought Blobstore wasnt available for PHP.

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Solution

  • I'm not super familiar with GAE for PHP but it is likely that any file upload functionality is implemented via Blobstore behind the scenes.

    Using Blobstore has two side-effects: the actual file contents are stored in the Blobstore proper, and some metadata about the blob is stored as an entity (BlobInfo) in the Datastore.

    So yes seeing both is expected.

    The difference is that the Datastore is a database for structured data (Entities) while the Blobstore stores large opaque binary objects (like files).