What is a good "database-like" structure for storing user info?

Question

I am quite a novice programmer, so I hope this makes sense. I am trying to write a Windows Application in Visual Basic using Visual Studio 2005 that allows the user to create and study "virtual" flashcards. Each card will consist of a topic/term and details about that topic/term--as with ordinary flashcards. Each card will also belong to a deck(s). Each deck represents related topics and terms. So, for instance if the user wanted to study a chapter in a book, the deck would represent the chapter and each card in that deck would represent the related topics/terms. When the user creates a card/deck, I need a way of storing this information on the end users machine. I don't want the user to have to access a remote database for this, because I don't plan on maintaining one. Is there a good solution for this problem? If so then what?

Answer 1

You can create a text file for each subject and store a Question and Answer in a CSV format with one question per line.

A basic math flash card file would look like

2+2=,4
5*3=,15

etc....

You can have your user select a flasch card file for a subject.
Then load the CSV file into a string array.

Once your array is loaded you can randomly pull out a question from the string array.

With the question you will have to split the string
2+2=,4 at the comma to seperate the Question from the answer.
Display the question and compare the users response with the answer