Using a file as database, without server

[Anon]

Hi. I'm starting a small project, and as such, I want the simplicity of using a file as database, without needig a server like mySQL or ODBC (much like an Access .mdb from ASP).

For example: db_connect("/html/db/mydb.mdb");

Is there a way to do this with PHP ?

Thanks in advance for your answers,
D`arcy

[Anon]

I found this method... (look at the php help file on php.net)

$conn=new COM("ADODB.Database");
$rs=conn->execute("your query here");

but i'm finding a lot of problems 'cause of fields names in Access such as "time", 'cause of fields types, and i can't understand... the db is always locked and all connections causes errors continuosly after some queries, so i must restart IIS... dunno!!
:-/

[Anon]

Sounds like M$ allright =). But I'm using a GNU/Linux server so I don't think I can create a COM object... I'll look into it though.

Thanks for your answer !

[Anon]

If it is a small project, you can use a text file as a database.
Example
1) Text File - test.txt
name##surname##address
john##stare##26 high Street London

2) Php Script

$fp = fopen ("test.txt", "r");
while (!feof ($fp)) {

$line = fgets($fp, 4096);
$array = explode("##", $line);

// Display name -surname
if (in_array("john",$array)){
  echo $array[0];
  echo "<br>";
  echo $array[1];
} 

}

fclose($fp);

[Anon]

Thank you very much, I think I'm going for this kind of approach ! (i've searched and found dba, but it's pretty uncommon to have in a server so I'll just roll my own small library...)

[[deleted]]

read about serialize() and unserialize()

Note: this is not a good idea, flatfile database don't work.