Sometimes flat file databases are more convenient to use because they do not require a database server to be accessed.
Usually they are also much faster to access because they do not require the use of SQL or any query language that imposes overhead to parse before executing the queries.
PHP has several extensions to access flat file databases. However, such extensions may not be available in the PHP version that is installed with some Web servers.
This class provides a pure PHP based solution that makes it possible to access dbase flat file databases, thus without the need for any specific extensions.