Here's an idea: PHP Database using...

bunka

PHP Database using Microsoft Excel.

Excel is very easy to use and it would be great if somehow you could connect to it and using it as an online database. Anybody wanna attempt this one?

Anon

Nope, for one simple reason: no concurrency.

glowball

Text files are even easier to use, but again, they do not a database make. There is a reason Microsoft made Access I guess.

jjoske

I've never tried this and have got no intention trying it but doesn't microsoft publish ODBC drivers for excel. If this is case all you could use the ODBC functions.
Probally work if you really wanted to use Excel as an online database?

bunka

I wouldn't know how to use it but those of you who do I'm sure I and a lot others would greatly appreciate making a tutorial.

Anon

Actually, I doubt that there's anyone here with much experience using ODBC drivers for Excel as a database, for the same reason few have any experience using the text-file ODBC driver (yes, there is such a thing)--neither underlying format has what it takes to be used as a database for more than a single user. Access to Excel files is completely document-centric; meaning especially that when the file is updated, the whole file has to get rewritten before the changes are visible to anyone else.

Those ODBC drivers are there primarily to be used for importing data from those formats, or exporting to those formats. But note again, those things too are also very much single-user/document-centered.