DevShed has a new tutorail on the PHP section of their site today - one that seeks to help you build a "PHP Datastorage Class" for three different types of storage.

Many websites use databases for storing data for use by web applications. There are situations in which this is not the best solution, however. For light, moderate, or temporary storage requirements, you might prefer to use flat files, session variables, and cookies. This article will describe how to create a class that handle all of these. It is the first of two parts.

In this article I will guide you through the design of a data storage class that can meet the needs of a long list of web applications requiring light to moderate or temporary storage requirements.

Of course, you'll need a bit of object-orient experience with PHP to get the most out of this tutorial, but since they lay all of the code out and explain each piece, just about any skill level can catch on. In this part of the series, they focus more on the use of flat-files to store the data, showing how to create them, push the data in, and pull it all back out.