What are the best practices for storing images in a PHP application, in terms of database storage versus server storage?

When storing images in a PHP application, it is generally recommended to store the images on the server filesystem and only store the file path in the database. This helps to improve performance and reduce database size. Additionally, using a unique identifier for each image file can help avoid naming conflicts. 

// Storing the image on the server filesystem
$targetDirectory = "uploads/";
$targetFile = $targetDirectory . uniqid() . basename($_FILES["fileToUpload"]["name"]);

if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES["fileToUpload"]["tmp_name"], $targetFile)) {
    // Save the file path in the database
    $imagePath = $targetFile;
    
    // Insert the image path into the database
    $query = "INSERT INTO images (image_path) VALUES ('$imagePath')";
    // Execute the query
} else {
    echo "Sorry, there was an error uploading your file.";
}

Keywords

image storage database storage server storage PHP application best practices

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