Why is it advised not to store images directly in a database when working with PHP?

Storing images directly in a database can lead to performance issues and increase the size of the database unnecessarily. It is more efficient to store the images on the server and only store the file path in the database. This way, you can easily retrieve and display the images without impacting the database performance. 

// Store the file path of the image in the database
$imagePath = "images/image.jpg";
$query = "INSERT INTO images_table (image_path) VALUES ('$imagePath')";
// Retrieve the image path from the database
$query = "SELECT image_path FROM images_table WHERE id = 1";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
$image = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
// Display the image
echo "<img src='{$image['image_path']}' alt='Image'>";

Keywords

file system database storage performance scalability security

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