Simplest way to implement a database for a Song list type program (Using Visual C++)

Question

Working on a school project, the program is supposed to read from a text file that has a record about a song in every line, fields separated by ";".

Anyways I have no knowledge of databases, and I just want the quickest way to create a database from that text file, and also i will need to change some of the fields of the records once in a while from the program... Also the program needs to search through the database based on certain fields.

Anyways so far all our projects didn't keep a database, so when we closed the program, every info was gone, now i actually need to keep some info for the next time the program runs. What's the fastest way to accomplish this?

Also I wanna be able to keep some info about the software, like the path of the original text file for weekly updates. Where can i save info like that?

EDIT: it doesn't have to an actual database, as long as i can search and edit it efficiently.

Answer 1

Your comma-delimited textfile is aleady a database. You can add records, delete records, and modify records using the standard textfile routines provided by the standard C++ libraries.

Alternatively, you can import your textfile into SQL Server using BULK INSERT.

Finally, you can access your CSV (comma-delimited text) file using SQL queries. You need to find the correct connection string. See http://www.connectionstrings.com/textfile.

Answer 2

If you can use SQL database, I'd suggest simple file-based database SQLite With SQLite, you can query, insert and update records by executing regular SQL statements.

Here you will find introduction to C++ interface It's easy to embed SQLite support in an application because SQLite comes as a library, meaning a bunch of header files and 1-2 binary archive with library.