Does it make sense to move this XML to a database?

We keep a list of error numbers which each map to a user-friendly text description. Example:

		<ErrorDescriptor>


 			<ErrorCode>1001</ErrorCode>


 			<ErrorDescription>


 				You entered an invalid email address.
			</ErrorDescription>
 		</ErrorDescriptor>
		<ErrorDescriptor>


 			<ErrorCode>1002</ErrorCode>


 			<ErrorDescription>


 				You entered a dollar amount less than zero.
			</ErrorDescription>
 		</ErrorDescriptor>

....and so on, for every error. This list is now in the hundreds of errors. We're starting to look at better ways to store and map these error codes. Developers have started making new error codes when old ones already exist which probably match their needs but the xml takes so long to look through that it's easier just to create a new one.

My questions are: Is it better to move this into a database table? At what point does the size of the xml file begin to degrade the performance? The problems with moving to a database table would include:
· Time consuming to import all of them and make necessary database changes (Probably are a couple of ways to automate this though) · Will have to search and replace all existing use of error codes with calls to the database
· More hits on our database

Suggestions for designing a better error code/description system would be greatly appreciated. Any tips on what you have done in your experiences would be great. Thanks a lot! Received on Thu Jan 30 2003 - 17:32:13 CET