Flat file databases

Question

What are the best practices around creating flat file database structures in PHP?

A lot of more matured PHP flat file frameworks out there which I attempt to implement SQL-like query syntax which is over the top for my purposes in most cases. (I would just use a database at that point).

Are there any elegant tricks out there to get good performance and features with a small code overhead?

Answer 1

Well, what is the nature of the flat databases. Are they large or small. Is it simple arrays with arrays in them? if its something simple say userprofiles built as such:

$user = array("name" => "dubayou", 
              "age" => 20,
              "websites" => array("dubayou.com","willwharton.com","codecream.com"),
              "and_one" => "more");

and to save or update the db record for that user.

$dir = "../userdata/";  //make sure to put it bellow what the server can reach.
file_put_contents($dir.$user['name'],serialize($user));

and to load the record for the user

function &get_user($name){
    return unserialize(file_get_contents("../userdata/".$name));
}

but again this implementation will vary on the application and nature of the database you need.