Dynamic Data Storage without Seperate database program?

[Prognosticator]

I'm relatively new to the vb.net framework and object oriented programming. After perusing the threads for a few hours I can't quite find an answer so I'm posting this thread. I'm not necessarily looking for code examples. I just want to know if it's possible and where to look next. Basically I'm trying to build a starter application that will help me learn programming. One of the main things I want to do is to be able to dynamically (at run time) create a set of information (data) that can be manipulated via a set of static (and/or dynamic) functions/calculations. The reason I need it to be dynamic is because even though this program is really just for my own fun and perusal on my own machine (and I want it to be able to run without any outside connections (i.e. databases or servers) the data itself is going to be location (i.e. State of residence or even city) specific. Essentially most of the data will be numerical and can be of the integer type. But I'd like to be able to adjust and create new data sets if desired. From everything I've read and researched I haven't found a way to do this (at least now without an excessive amount of coding that is above my expertise). So I want to know if there is a way to do this that is relatively simple. Did I miss something? Thanx for the help in advance.

[Shaggy Hiker]

How simple are you looking?

From that description, I would be building classes to hold the information, and perhaps a class to manage a list of those classes. As long as the classes are marked as Serializable, then you can use binary serialization, which would take about two lines of code to save and two lines to load. The resulting file will be a binary file that can't easily be read by anything else.

Alternatively, you could store everything in XML, which could be viewed and edited in Notepad, but which could be somewhat harder to store and load.

[Prognosticator]

A quick perusal online and in the vb2008 express edition ide help section uncovered quite a few topics related to serialization via xml and binary. Which is pretty much what I was looking for and I will be doing plenty of research to see how I can integrate it but if I can also ask and answer as I do so, I want it to be fairly simple but I would like the "user" to be able to view and manipulate the data (as in possibly a datagrid control?) and the data that is viewed and manipulated will then generate new sets of data that I'd also like to be able to view and manipulate. Essentially the information will be ENTERED by the user in a GUI (not command line), viewed in a similar format, calculated upon with the new calculations also creating a new data set that can then be manipulated and recalculated on. And just so I can clear the air, I'm sure this might be an over ambitious project for me considering my limited experience. But I'm stubborn. I like to think if I want to make it do X that there is a way and I'll find it. So I just want to know if you have any idea of the functionality of the binary serialization in terms of representing it in a datagrid or similar control. Thanx again. Your initial response has already been a huge help.