Looking for simple data storage methods?

I am pretty new to database development, and I'm looking out for the quickest and simplest way to build a system in which a user completes a questionnaire which should be developed in HTML, and after the data has been submitted then the data which has been submitted should get dumped as a record into a file. This file could be a database, or some formatted texfile that could be imported later, perhaps... Heck, even an Excel file would be great. I have access to Excel, File maker, and some SQL capabilities (though I'm not sure to what extent - I don't know the first thing about SQL, but we have a server management package with a company that has some degree of MySQL 4 and 5 access). Can I get some advice on which method to pursue?

I would like to recommend you that the simplest storage method is a simple text file. In general, you create a text file; put it on your server, and then your submission script opens and writes to the end of it every time your form is submitted. For specifics, I would post your question in the programming forum under the language you intend to accomplish this with. It should be trivial no matter which language you use. I think that this will help you in solving the problem.

Looking at the questions which you have mentioned I would like to recommend you that I would probably opt for a simple MySQL or Sqlite database. Pretty easy to pull or dump data from the database once you have that setup it. A text file would work, but it's often much more complicated than a database when you need to manipulate data in the file. I hope that you like my suggestion and hope this will help you in solving the problem.

I would like to suggest you that i was also suffering from the same problem that you are suffering now use an XML file that is web-accessible. Then you can query the XML file from the browser if need be, and still parse/write it in PHP. You'll want to use the flock function in PHP to make sure that two instances of a page don't try to write to the file at the same time. I hope that you like my suggestion and hope this will help you in solving the problem.

I apologize for my delayed reply. I was busy in the college days. Would you imagine it plausible to store xml code inside the file? IS the same true for SQL or LINQ. I'm working at the university here on a website project which combines php and mysql, so I'll end up learning a bit about SQL soon. I hope that you like my suggestion and hope this will help you in solving the problem.

From the discussion going on I would like to recommend you that SQL and LINQ are very hot topic now, we can use ADO.NET to handle database by SQL syntax and use LINQ TO SQL to handle the elements of database as an object. There are many ways storing data to a single file, as you said, serialization and de-serialization. If you don’t want to use SQL and LINQ, I think XML may be a good way to store data. You should have knowledge of xml before you use it. I hope that you like my suggestion and hope this will help you in solving the problem.

I would like to recommend you that you should go on the internet and search on the Google site you will get some of the information regarding this topic or you will get the videos regarding this topic because when I saw the topic I myself saw the video and in that video it was suggested nicely. I hope that the suggestion given by me will help you in solving the problem.