Learning to Program

Long-Term (Persistent) Storage

You have many ways to store data more permanently. The method you choose depends on the programming environment you are using and the nature of the data you need to store. For small amounts of simple data, your program can create a new file on the computer’s hard drive and write the data to that file. As data grows in size and complexity, it becomes necessary to use a more robust solution, such as a database. When your programming environment is a web page within a web browser, your options are more limited. Very small amounts of data can be stored as cookies, but most data that requires long-term storage must be sent back to the server.