Which is faster / more efficient - lots of little MySQL queries or one big PHP array?

Question

I have a PHP/MySQL based web application that has internationalization support by way of a MySQL table called language_strings with the string_id,

Answer 1

OK - I did some benchmarking and was surprised to find that putting things into an array rather than using individual queries was, on average, 10-15% SLOWER.

I think the reason for this was because, even if I filtered out the "uncommon" elements, inevitably there was always going to be unused elements as a matter of course.

With the individual queries I am only ever getting out what I need and as the queries are so simple I think I am best sticking with that method.

This works for me, of course in other situations where the individual queries are more complex, I think the method of storing common data in an array would turn out to be more efficient.