Flat-file database

Another example of a flat file is a name-and-address list with the fields Name, Address and Phone Number.

The fixed lengths can be predefined and known ahead of time (i.e. stated in the format's specification), or parsed from a header.

With delimiter-separated formats, determining the field boundaries requires finding the delimiters, which incurs some computational overhead.

However, fixed-width formats can lead to unnecessarily large file sizes if fields tend to be shorter than the lengths reserved for them.

It has low overhead and trivially avoids delimiter collisions, but it is brittle when edited manually.

[citation needed] In the 1980s, configurable flat-file database computer applications were popular on the IBM PC and the Macintosh.

[citation needed] Examples of flat-file database software include early versions of FileMaker and the shareware PC-File and the popular dBase.

Flat-file databases are common and ubiquitous because they are easy to write and edit, and suit myriad purposes in an uncomplicated way.