XML vs. SQlite vs. Access

Question

Question: We've started a project for a customer, which includes what would normally be done with a database.

However, the customer wants no database installed, since it's only a little application. We however intend to reuse the code for a larger project, which will use a database.

The problem is all the server side code will be different if I'm using XML or SQlite or Access.

I'm tending towards SQlite, but I don't know. Would adding the database in an MS-Access file be a better solution? If I would put it into an access database, does the customer need MS-Access installed or only the MSFT MDAC ? If I use the Access DB, will that run under Linux with Mono, too, or is there no MDAC replacement ?

Answer 1

I would consider using NHibernate, you can hook it up to SQLite, but can upgrade later to a full database later without needing to change much code. If you're not keen on this, I would use SQLite directly over XML files.