: Storing image order without a database The classic question is whether to store images in a database or on the file system. In my case I feel it is probably best to store it on the file

@Kimberly868

A programming option would be to store the image order in the EXIF data of the jpg files.

There's a UserComment or ImageDescription property you could use - assuming that these weren't already used in the image of course.

This will be slower than using an external file/database or changing the names or timestamps of the files, but it is self contained.

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@Cody1181609

You can use simple text file to simulate real database. If folder = album, then store order of images in text file in each folder (same file name, for example: order.txt.db).

Possible file format:


single line of text that you need to parse after reading from file (for example: file1.jpg|file2.jpg|file5.jpg|file3.jpg) -- it is easy to parse if you select right delimiter that is not part of the actual file name;
one line per file (each file on new line) -- maybe even better, as new line is definitely unique delimiter that will not be part of the file name;
scripting language-specific format (for example: serialized array for PHP -- using serialize() function) -- can easily be un-serialized and ready to use with no additional parsing (as un-serializing routine will do all parsing job for you).




If your hosting plan does not allow/support MySQL or similar database engine .. then it may support SQLite -- it is fast and one database = one file which can be stored as any other file on your site (just need read-write access).



Another approach would be renaming file names to include sorting order number (e.g. 001-file1.jpg, 002-file5.jpg etc), but this is more complicated to manage (kind of similar problems to using file modification time).

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