Flatfile databases

Anon

Does anyone know a good web site to learn how to use flatfile databases?
I'm a complete learner, and I've never written a php script before.

Thanks.

Anon

Is there a reason why you want to use a flatfile db? PHP makes accessing many of the popular SQL engines quite easy, so I can't see the benefit of using a flatfile unless its the only form of db available to you...

Anon

Well I don't know anything about PHP, so I figured it'd be easier to learn on flatfile databases rather than MySQL.

Anon

PHP makes dealing with MySQL fairly easy - and although the learning curve for SQL is a bit steeper than that for flatfile, the extra power makes it worthwhile.

Looking down the article list here it seems that a MySQL/SQL tutorial and first steps with PHP and MySQL tutorial is missing. Perhaps I'll write one? 🙂

Anon

Well I've just installed MySQL on my server, so I suppose I should just learn it now, rather than mess with flatfile databases.

Thanks.

Anon

Kewl. The force is strong in this one 🙂

Anon

I figured it'd be easier to learn on flatfile databases rather than MySQL.

Probably not. The really complicated things you can do with SQL, you can't do with flatfile databases at all. So if you just stick with the basics of just adding, querying, updating, and deleting rows from a simple single-table database, you won't find SQL difficult.

Anon

well I'd very highly recommend the Webmonkey tutorial at:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/programming/php/tutorials/tutorial4.html

as a starting point for using MySQL and PHP.

Anon

Don't listen to these losers. Yes they are right when they say that SQL databases are more powerful, but they are a real pain in the butt to learn. SQL is a really crap language, sure you can get your data in almost any form you want but it is difficult to debug when something goes wrong, which it almost always does first time.

Flat file databases can be better than SQL databases as they are completely system independant. You don't need to worry about what database server the people using your product have installed. It will work first time.

So if you want to learn flat file databases I suggest you do some research on dbm files. It a really easy way of storying data in a file using hash arrays. I assume you know what hash arrays are. (You know the ones that look like this: $array['index1'] = 'blah'😉
All you need to do is put on entry into one element in the array and serperate each field with a tab, making sure you remove all the tabs from the inputed data.

PHP makes this even easier by supplying you with a bunch of dbm functions. Have a look here:
http://www.php.net/manual/html/ref.dbm.html

Good luck.

mahendrakalkura

hi there

i agree with you

i like mysql anyway but since no freewebhost has mysql enabled in their system we cant do much with it now a days

can you show me some nice tutorials for using php with flat file databases

thanks in advance

cya soon

also i know how to use mysql so i hope leaning flatfile database wont be difficult for me

Originally posted by Anon
Don't listen to these losers. Yes they are right when they say that SQL databases are more powerful, but they are a real pain in the butt to learn. SQL is a really crap language, sure you can get your data in almost any form you want but it is difficult to debug when something goes wrong, which it almost always does first time.

Flat file databases can be better than SQL databases as they are completely system independant. You don't need to worry about what database server the people using your product have installed. It will work first time.

So if you want to learn flat file databases I suggest you do some research on dbm files. It a really easy way of storying data in a file using hash arrays. I assume you know what hash arrays are. (You know the ones that look like this: $array['index1'] = 'blah'😉
All you need to do is put on entry into one element in the array and serperate each field with a tab, making sure you remove all the tabs from the inputed data.

PHP makes this even easier by supplying you with a bunch of dbm functions. Have a look here:
http://www.php.net/manual/html/ref.dbm.html

Good luck.