There are "text" files, there are databases, I used to use a record (now called a structure) in a ".dat" file, but I'm having trouble finding documentation support in vs2010. So I'm thinking maybe it's time to move up to ... ? databases? ".txt"s? The current app I'm trying to write will only have a couple of hundred "records" at the very most; Old vb6 command like LenB which would return the size of a file in bytes is no longer, and I can't find how len( .."as byte" of file) would actually be implemented. len( <filename>, as byte) isn't the correct syntax - what is?

Is there some thing less dramatic than a full blown database? Or getting used to how a database uses SQL and all that goes along with that shoud be something to get handy with?