scott schrieb:
> The type of analysis I will need to do will be fairly straightforward, 
> like taking averages and sums of each bit of data over all (or subsets 
> of) rows, and maybe even some simple filtering but nothing fancy.

This can easily be done inside the database with SQL. There are so 
called aggregate functions like sum(), avg(), etc.

> My question is, should I be looking to use some external database engine 
> to do the backend work here for me, or can I get away with just using 
> STL containers like "set" or something, with a struct that holds my data?

Doing as much as possible inside the database will be faster.

> If a database engine will be better, any recommendations of which one?  
> An easy to install/learn one would be better, and it must be free to 
> distribute with my program and of course easily accessible from C++.

The give PostgreSQL a try. It has an C++ API too:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/6.5/static/libpqplusplus.htm

So long,

Bonsai

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