In that case...
Point the coder at this discussion and let the coder decide.
Also note that anyone who is building this kind of glue tool in C these days, really owes it to himself to learn how to do it in a higher-order language. With PC class hardware putting data into a database, the usual bottlenecks are your database and your network connection. Given that, C is at the wrong point on the development ease versus raw performance tradeoff...
Cheers,
Ben
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman