I've done the flatfile thing several times on various projects, and I'm starting to appreciate the wisdom of letting sqlite handle it. Things it can handle correctly include:
- crashes/power failures
- multiple processes opening the same file
- transactional updates: it rolls back if you throw an exception in the middle of writing the update. This seems like a common failure mode while under development
- scaling to huge size: many gigabytes are no problem. These get slow with a flatfile
- manual surgery on data: it comes with handy command line tools for manipulating its databases
- upgrading format: you can check a version number when opening the file and do "alter table add column" for any new features.
- crashes/power failures
- multiple processes opening the same file
- transactional updates: it rolls back if you throw an exception in the middle of writing the update. This seems like a common failure mode while under development
- scaling to huge size: many gigabytes are no problem. These get slow with a flatfile
- manual surgery on data: it comes with handy command line tools for manipulating its databases
- upgrading format: you can check a version number when opening the file and do "alter table add column" for any new features.