dbm is a simple database package that comes with X/Open-compliant Unices. It allows the programmer to store arbitrary blocks of data in a regular file. Each block is associated with a key, which can later be used to retrieve the data.

The drawbacks of dbm is that it's little more than an indexed file storage system; it is impossible to do complex queries or use SQL. On the plus side, it's lightweight, standard on most systems (FSF has produced a free version called gdbm), and has bindings for most popular languages.

Guitar chords: Dflat minor
Dbm
 ======
 ~~~~~~
 ------
 1--111  9th fret
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
 |34|||
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
 DADFAD
 bbbbbb

or:

 X
 ======
 ~~~~~~
 ------
 |1---1  4th fret
 ------
 ||||2|
 ------
 ||34||
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
  DADFA
  bbbbb

or:

 XX
 ======
 ~~~~~~
 ------
 |||111  9th fret
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
 ||3|||
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
 ||||||
 ------
   DFAD
   bbbb

Notes:  1  : Db
        b3 : Fb
        5  : Ab

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