Hi, My problem is to keep track of users in case i want to bill them or atleast have a record history for each person. I am very comfortable with text files and will like to store the particulars of each user in a text file, when a person tries to log on, i intend to scan the text file to see if he is already on, my worry is what happens if at that same moment a new user is being created (i.e,the text file with user profiles is being written to) how will this affect the data being read and written. (2.) if updating a text file is done in between application lock and unlock will it have the effect of ensuring that there is no conflict between read and write operations

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I think you are confusing cookies with user account information. Can you explain what you are trying to accomplish in a little more detail?

Hi, Thanks for the quick response. when a user logs on to my web site, he will be prompted to enter his user name and password. after the user enters his name and password, a scan is made in the list of existing names and passwords. if the name already exists, a check will be made to see if he "abadoned" his last useage or if he properly signed out. if he did not propely sign out all his usage records are fetched and the duration of his usage is determined, then he is properly signed out and signed in for the new session. therefore no user can have more than one session going on with his password. My problem is that i intend to allow people to sign up and test the site, therefore it is possible that when a new user is signing up, a scan is being made to check if another persons exists. what happens if this two processes happen at the exact same time, furthermore, can update of records in a text file be done inside application.lock and application.unlock

Hi chinedu,

In your case, I would vote for using Database.

Cheers!

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- Vijay G
Strive for Perfection