I'm looking at having a 'sign up to our newsletter' area on my site. Do I need a sql database for this or is a text file sufficent to store email addresses? I've seen one script which uses a text file but wasn't sure how an email address would be deleted if someone unsubscribed.

Thanks.

Maintaining a "flat file" database for more than a few dozen subscribers will become unwieldy and cumbersome to manage.

I would just use a database, especially since it is only for an email address.

Cheers.

Do you know if there are any popular scripts to manage the saving of email addresses to a database and the reading of the database into a mailing list?

I just spoke to my host and they said I need to purchase an add on to have a mailing list and if I wanted to have an extra sql database then I'd have to purchase one too. But they also said that I didn't need an sql database in order to send newsletters, so I'm a bit confused!

thanks.

You do not need another database just to hold email addresses in. You just have to make a table on the database you have now.

"PHPList"

If your hosting has "Fantastico" available then it should be installable.