DBM Files

[BOLCATO CHRIS (esm1cmb)]

Hello all,
I am fairly new to using Perl and have some questions regarding DBM Files.
One, which type is recommended DB_File, GDBM, SDBM, NDBM etc.?
Is it common practice to make use of DBM files? Or should I look into some
other database structure?
Is it a significant performance enhancement over just using delimited flat
files?
Any help or kick in the right direction would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance for any info!
Chris