Shoutbox

Hey guys,

I know this isn't really the point of the forum, but I figure it's still script related, so hopefully be ok.
I'm looking for suggestions or recommendations on how to improve my script to get data from a MySQL database.
I've looked over the forums already, and know there no way for plus to do it directly (at least no simple way), but I figured there still may be a much more efficient way than I currently have set up.

At the moment, data is added to MySQL via php pages, which then read the entire database into an xml file, which is accessed by my script.  At the moment however, this takes a good 10 seconds on my connection, and over a minute on a friends, which isnt really a great time especially with the database growing, so I need an alternative.

My best thought at the moment (best meaning hopefully will work but I dont really have a clue) is to make xml a file extension that is handled by php, and use $_POST or $_GET for the search term, but I cant do this currently (changing server tomorrow to hopefully get the ability).

I just thought I'd throw my hat in, see if anyone can suggest anything better for the system.

Cheers
Leroux