Hi,
Well, just to had to your confusion, I'll suggest using a whole different approach. Simply (well, simply... sort of) imitate what a true DBMS will do. Use csv files to hold tables, and use some Tie stuff to tie the real files to memory helde structures.

The hard part is that you whant multiple updating access (by the way, IIRC mysql does not allow this). You should be hable to do that by using some lock mechanism in your Tie part.

I'm almost sure someone already implemented this, but if you can not have DBI installed, then probably even get other modules installed will be a PITA.

One las thing, if your server has (or would install) DBI but lacks the mysql (or other DBMS) server, then you could consider using something like DBD::File or DBD::CSV as your database dependent driver under DBI.

Cheers