This article, and the column series that it derives from, is an attempt to fill that need. If you're a novice to web databases, this is the article for you. Even experienced developers may find this a helpful review and learn a thing or two from the section on common database design mistakes. Database Design Metaphors Databases can be built around a number of different metaphors. The three most common types, especially for web database work, are flat files, relational databases, and object-oriented databases.
Flat files are the most basic database.
The basic characteristic of a flat-file database is that all of the information is stored together in a single file. In a future column we'll use Perl to manipulate flat-file databases, which is the most typical implementation of simple databases on the Web. One problem with flat-file databases is that they don't efficiently store and manage complex information. For example, take a database that manages a set of media files and the different projects that use those files. Too many columns and you waste valuable storage space.