[rt-devel] large attachments

[gsstark at mit.edu]

Having read the mailing list archives I'll toss my 2c in the ring in favour of
being able to save all attachments in the filesystem.

If a user uploads a 1Mb core file, the last thing I'll want to do is have to
download that file from a web server which has to get the data from a sql
database in order to run file or gdb on it to do anything.

If the core file proves useless I would rather be able to delete it easily and
safely without worrying about database schema underlying my tool. Or maybe
just gzip it or move it to another disk. etc.

The bottom line is that the data contributed to trouble tickets is not a
consistent type of data and generally not of a type that allows the database
to do anything useful. On a production environment where the data is mission
critical, the database provides good tools for managing LOB space usage, and
being maintained by full time DBAs then maybe it would make sense. However
I've never seen any database where dealing with LOBs is easier than just
dealing with a directory of files. 

What I would prefer is a built-in file datatype. It should support rename,
delete, gzip, etc and perform the operation on the actual file. But it
shouldn't have to actually touch the data in the file itself.

-- 
greg