A few weeks ago I had a similar idea. I searched the net and discovered that a single table database was "very popular"(1). My idea was something like dbm, string/string. I downloaded gdbm, ndbm, cdbm, kissdb, and even found the original dbm. But a hash table is unpredictable. A BTree is more serious. An old dilemma. "Gentlemen prefer bonds" (JP Morgan) Anita Loos: "Gentlemen prefer blondes". (1) - Correction: "used sometimes". Sorry. :)