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# DATABASES

MiniVend, as with most powerful shopping cart programs, is all about databases.

NOTE: No other database besides MiniVend's internal one is needed. You may find that keeping your database in an SQL manager makes it easier to integrate MiniVend with other tools. MiniVend is fully buzzword-equipped, but if you just want to maintain a spreadsheet with your product information, you can ignore the references to SQL, DBI, DBD, and all of those other things and just modify the file `products.txt` appropriately.

MiniVend implements the database in GDBM, DB_File, SQL, or in-memory format. In most cases, these should operate the same when called by MiniVend's access methods.

- A bit about text source files
- MiniVend Database Operation
- The Product Database
- Multiple Database Tables
- MiniVend built-in database support
- Character usage restrictions
- Database Attributes
- Dictionary indexing with INDEX
- MEMORY for memory-only databases
- IMPORT_ONCE
- Importing in a page
- Exporting from a database
- Write Control
- Global Databases

Index Previous: SETTING UP YOUR CATALOG Next: SQL SUPPORT