I'm currently creating a program that collects various user inputs, and I need to decide how to store this data in a SQLite database for loading on startup. Is it better to serialize the input data into a JSON format and store it as a single string, or should I create separate columns for each input? I'm considering that the structure might change in the future with the possibility of adding or removing inputs. Any advice on this would be appreciated!
2 Answers
It kind of depends on your data use case. If you need well-defined structures and want to ask your database questions like 'what events do I have?' then go for individual columns. But if you have loose data where users can add random tags, JSON is a good fit. SQLite has JSON query functions too, which could help if you decide to go that route for the flexibility.
Have you thought about how you'll actually use this data? If you plan to search through multiple documents or fetch individual fields regularly, using separate columns is probably the way to go. But if the inputs are pretty stable and you just want some flexibility, JSON could work fine. But just keep in mind that moving to a structured approach might be better in the long run if your needs evolve.
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