I never worked with the GDBM_File module, but one solution, if you aim flexibility, is to use the DBI module. It provides a common interface to every kind of database (well, nearly), ranging from plain text files to Oracle.

You can choose to use any database, and should you change it over times you will only have to modify a couple of lines in your program.

You don't really need to be an expert of SQL to insert and query records in your database (but it sure can help) as the DBI module provides tons of examples on how to do these kinds of operations. You might also be interested in Programming Perl DBI a really good book on database programming with Perl.

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