usage of dbm files with apache2 perl and php

[Fritz Heinrichmeyer]

after rebuilding apache2 dbm based authentification was broken.

I use a perl script to build dmb (== db1 under FreeBSD) files for
auth_dbm with apache2. I installed an apache2 package compiled on an
identical box. 

After recompiling on the same box authentication worked again.

Here my questions:

Is there a not so ambigous (namewise) simple key->value database format
that can be used without problems with perl, php and auth_dbm from
apache2.

Php configuration does not believe that db and dbm is the same under
freebsd (at least the last time i tried).

Apache2 mod_auth_dbm is able to use almost all, but it seems to be only
documented in the source. 

What is the most common way to solve this problems?