In this next installment, we'll be looking at two (arguably very contrasting) databases. The first is Gladius DB, which is a flat file database written in pure PHP. The second is Firebird, another database veteran, which has features similar to some of the better-known databases, such as Microsoft SQLServer.

She gives a brief introduction of each and includes links to two resources to help you get connected to each. A bit of sample code shows how to make the connections and pull information out of simple tables (SELECTed).

In this day and age, there a plethora of options available to us. In this three part series, I'm going to walk you through five alternative databases that you may or may not have heard of. [...] Whether you're involved in embedded development, OLTP, OLAP, massive scalability and storage or simple database-backed applications, you're not going to walk away with the same perspective that you had before you started reading these posts. So without further ado, let's get started with a look at a veteran of the Internet: Berkeley DB.

She covers some of the database's basic features and a bit about its history (available for years) as well as some detail on how requests to the database work. To make the connection from your application, you'll need to install the dba PHP extension. She provides two examples of code that uses the database - one that just connects and deletes a record, another that adds/removes/finds users from an "address book" database.