Storing DB query results in PHP objects

I am working on a project that is being built 开发者_C百科with a standard LAMP stack. Currently, I merely output the results of the query onto the page - the results are not being stored in objects at all.

In the future, I would like to edit the results of the query. I imagine that this would much easier if the results were stored in PHP objects.

Would it be more beneficial to store the objects themselves in a DB (via serialization/deserialization), or to create the objects when need be (after executing the query) and then destroying them when they are no longer needed?

You'd be better off storing a copy of the results directly in your object, rather than a serialized result handle. Serializing the result handle will NOT preserve locks, server-side variables, table state, transactions, or the data in the result set. MySQL has no provision for storing a connection handle in this fashion, so it'd be seen as a regular disconnect and resulting in outstanding queries being cleaned up, variables destroyed, transactions rolled back (or committed), etc...

As well, the data retrieved by the query is not actually fetched across the connection until you do a fetch_row()-type call, so you'd not even have that in your serialized handle.

Always create the objects in php, and destroy them later. In order to serialize you will need to use longtext or like field, which are known to be slow and you cannot index on them. If you are always doing a Select All, then go ahead, but if you ever use conditions or advanced queries, you should have all data separated.

It depends on many factors. If you are running the exact same queries again and again, then yes, store the results in your database. But why serialise them? If you tried Object-relational mapping, you could have a much easier to maintain query object, that you could store in a well organised relational database. If you are not running the same queries very often, I would recommend caching the output in another way.

Would it be more beneficial to store the objects themselves in a DB (via serialization/deserialization), or to create the objects when need be (after executing the query) and then destroying them when they are no longer needed?

No. Somebody somewhere has done this for you. What would be beneficial is for you to use an existing ORM. It doesn't matter which one, just pick one and use it. You'll be lightyears ahead and get your project out the in a fraction of the time.

You should use a PHP framework while you're at it, many of which come coupled to an ORM.