4chan: database or flat-file system?

How are posts saved in the 4cdhan imageboard software? Is it a database or still a flat-file system?

4chan even.

>>1
Last I read, MySQL. The software is based off of Futallaby (http://www.1chan.net/futallaby/), though it's been largely rewritten.

The textboards use a flat-file system (look up shiichan), and the imageboards use a database. I can't wrap my head around coding a flat file imageboard, to be honest.

1. Back when PHP wasn't that popular or even nonexisting and Perl was used for these image/textboard scripts, did they also use flat files or was an own database coded for this? Did Perl support databases at all back then (I read it does now)?

2. If flat/text files were used, how did they handle multiple access to one file, like hundreds of people posting in the same thread? Does Perl handle them one after each other automatically, or does a coder have to add his own lines in the script to handle this?

>>5
Back when PHP wasn't that popular or even nonexisting and Perl was used for these image/textboard scripts
This is incorrect, as the very first imageboard script (GazouBBS, which Futaba is based on) is coded in PHP. As for you second question, I wouldn't know. You would really only need a database if it's going to be a traffic heavy site.

>>5
Perl has file-locking. Shiichan isn't written in Perl, though.

>>7

PHP has file locking (flock). You can also do atomic updates by writing to a temp file and using rename(). Of course, you need both.