Wordpress plugin, XML files or Database table..both?

Ok guys, so i am 50% the way through creating a "content manager" plugin开发者_JS百科 for wordpress (mainly for the internal benefit of the company i work for) that can create custom post types, taonamies and meta boes with a prety interface.

At the moment im using XML files created through php to parse and hold the data relating to "post types", "Taxonamies" and "metaboxes". The main reason i began down the xml road was so i could allow users to export to an xml file and import on another wordpress install. simple.

Although no im not sure? is it too server heavy to have the plugin recursing through directorys every each time to init the post types, taxonamies and meta boxes? would i be better served to crete 3 db tables and when i need to import or export simple do the XML from there?

would love to hear our opions?!

I would go with the database-solution. When the XML-File grows size, the parsing will take more and more time, as the whole file is read every time.

In a Database, you can select only the values you need and don't need to parse the whole document every time.

Also, realizing a XML import/export from the values stored in the database shouldn't be that much of a problem.

But if you have very tiny XML-files (like less then 100 chars) and they don't grow much, you'll have to decide if it's worth the time to change to a database.