I'm trying to group a bunch of files together based on RecipeID and StepID. Instead of storing all of the filenames in a table I've decided to just use glob to get the images for the requested recipe. I feel like this will be more efficient and less data handling. Keeping in mind the directory will eventually contain many thousands of images. If I'm wrong about this then the below question is not necessary lol
So let's say I have RecipeID #5 (nachos, mmmm) and it has 3 preparation steps. The naming convention I've decided on would be as such:
5_1_getchips.jpg
5_2_laycheese.jpg
5_2_laytomatos.jpg
5_2_laysalsa.jpg
5_3_bake.jpg
5_finishednachos.jpg
5_morefinishedproduct.jpg
The files may be generated by a camera, so DSC###.jpg...or the person may have actually named each picture as I have above. Multiple images can exist per step. I'm not sure how I'll handle dupe filenames, but I feel that's out of scope.
I want to get all of the "5_" images...but filter them by all the ones that DON'T have any step # (grouped in one DIV), and then get all the ones that DO have a step (grouped in their respective DIVs).
I'm thinking of something like
foreach ( glob( $IMAGES_RECIPE . $RecipeID . "-*.*") as $image)
and then using a substr to filter out the step# but I'm concerned about getting the logic right because what if the original filename already has _#_ in it for some reason. Maybe I need to have a strict naming convention that always includes _0_ if it doesn't belong to a step.
Thoughts?
Globbing through 1000s of files will never being faster than having indexed those files in a database (of whatever type) and execute a database query for them. That's what databases are meant for.