A database engine is executed within an Extensible Firmware Interface (“EFI”) environment that provides generic database functions on records having arbitrary data types. Database functions such as adding, deleting, and searching records may be performed by the database engine. The database engine utilizes a database structure for organizing the database that includes an initial count field for storing the initial number of records to be stored in the database, a record count field for storing the current number of records in the database, a key count field for storing the number of key fields in a stored data record, a key field for storing a pointer to a function for retrieving the value of a key field, and an index array field for storing a pointer to an index array. The index array is a sorted array of pointers to each of the data records in the database.