Book Image

PHP and MongoDB Web Development Beginner's Guide

Book Image

PHP and MongoDB Web Development Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

With the rise of Web 2.0, the need for a highly scalable database, capable of storing diverse user-generated content is increasing. MongoDB, an open-source, non-relational database has stepped up to meet this demand and is being used in some of the most popular websites in the world. MongoDB is one of the NoSQL databases which is gaining popularity for developing PHP Web 2.0 applications.PHP and MongoDB Web Development Beginner’s Guide is a fast-paced, hands-on guide to get started with web application development using PHP and MongoDB. The book follows a “Code first, explain later” approach, using practical examples in PHP to demonstrate unique features of MongoDB. It does not overwhelm you with information (or starve you of it), but gives you enough to get a solid practical grasp on the concepts.The book starts by introducing the underlying concepts of MongoDB. Each chapter contains practical examples in PHP that teache specific features of the database.The book teaches you to build a blogging application, handle user sessions and authentication, and perform aggregation with MapReduce. You will learn unique MongoDB features and solve interesting problems like real-time analytics, location-aware web apps etc. You will be guided to use MongoDB alongside MySQL to build a diverse data back-end. With its concise coverage of concepts and numerous practical examples, PHP and MongoDB Web Development Beginner’s Guide is the right choice for the PHP developer to get started with learning MongoDB.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
PHP and MongoDB Web Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Chapter 7. Handling Large Files with GridFS

So far in this book we have dealt with data that is mostly textual. But Web 2.0 hardly contains itself within text data. Now we are using web applications to do things that we probably did not think of doing while the World Wide Web was being conceived. For example, watching blockbuster movies, listening to top charted music, uploading and sharing high-resolution pictures snapped with our digital cameras, and all using our web browsers! Where does MongoDB fit in all of this? Is it capable of handling large amounts of binary data? The answer in short, is yes. And in this chapter, we are going to learn how. Mainly we are going to tinker with GridFS, which enables MongoDB to store large files.

So we are going to learn:

  • What GridFS is

  • Advantages of using GridFS

  • How to use PHP to upload files to GridFS

  • How to serve files from GridFS

  • When not to use GridFS and why

What is GridFS?

GridFS is MongoDB's solution for storing binary data in the database. It is a...