All there is needed to use WDB is the WDB script (written in Perl) and a set of high-level form definition files, each describing a different view on the database. WDB automatically creates HTML forms, on-the-fly, to allow the users to query the database, and given the users query constraints it will query the database and present the result to the user. WDB even comes with a utility to automatically extract information about a table from the database and create a working template form definition file.
A number of conversions are possible on the data coming from the database before they are shown to the users : Formatting of coordinates into hours minutes and seconds, formatting of dates, etc. The most noticeable feature are the possibility to convert data from the database into hyper-text links -- and as it is possible through WDB to access any database element directly via a WWW URL - The entire database can be turned into a huge hyper-text system. These hyper-text links can be links to other elements in the database - so providing a simple way of jumping between related information. They could also be links to other documents on the Web - so providing easily integration between data in the database and related documents on the Web. Or it could be links to other databases with a WDB or similar interface - so providing a simple mechanism for cross-database links.
WDB is a cgi-script written in Perl for a HTTP server for the World Wide Web. WDB was written here at ESO for the ESO (and, originally, the HST) science data archive.
For a few examples of what a database looks like when it is being made available through WDB try to have a look at :