dbm(1M)                         TCP/IP R4.11                         dbm(1M)


NAME
       dbm - general dbm(3X) database management tool

SYNOPSIS
       dbm [-AILRSU] [-d dbmfile] [-m mode] [-o outputfile] command
       [args...]

DESCRIPTION
       Dbm is used to manage dbm(3X) type databases.  Its function is
       controlled by the dbm command given on the command line, possibly
       with additional arguments.  It is typically used to load a dbm
       database from an input file or to dump it to a readable format.  It
       may also be used to probe for selected keys or add/delete specific
       key/value pairs.  In addition, dbm provides parsing routines for an
       extended textual format, suitable for building tables of various
       kinds.  The format is further described in the section about the
       parse command below.

   Options
       -A     Append mode, don't automatically clear the database on the
              load and make operations.

       -I     Insert mode; will supply the DBM_INSERT flag to all dbmstore
              operations.  This means that if two entries with equal keys
              are given, only the first will actually be entered to the
              database and no warning will be given.  The default, if
              neither -I nor -R is supplied and two entries with equal keys
              are given, is to enter the first into the database and print a
              warning about the second.

       -L     Lowercase mode.  Change all keys to lowercase before reading
              from or writing to the database.

       -R     Replace mode; will supply the DBM_REPLACE flag to all
              dbmstore operations.  This means that if two entries with
              equal keys are given, only the last will actually be entered
              to the database and no warning messages are given.

       -S     Add a @@@ sentinel after the last entry has been written to
              the database.

       -U     Uppercase mode.  Turn all keys to uppercase before reading
              from or writing to the database.

       -d dbmfile
              Perform all operations on the named database file.  If no -d
              option is given, the last argument after the command will be
              used as the dbmfile.

       -m mode
              When creating new databases, use mode: an octal integer, such
              as 0644.  Not applicable if reloading an existing database.

       -o outputfile
              Send all output from the dump and parse operations to the
              named output file instead of stdout.

   Commands
       clear  Creates an empty dbm database, either by clearing an old one
              or by creating a new.

       delete key [...]
              Removes entries with the specified keys from the database.

       dump   Dumps the dbm database to stdout (or to outputfile, if the -o
              option is used).  The output will consist of one entry per
              line with a tab between each key and value.

       fetch key [...]
              Fetch will search for the specified keys in the database and
              print in dump format on the standard output both key and value
              if found.  Non-existing keys will be signaled by a [NOT_FOUND]
              message.

       load [file...]
              Load the database with entries from the specified files.  If
              no files are given or if a file is specified as `-', the
              database will be loaded from standard input.  Each line of the
              file should have a key and value separated by a tab.
              (Incidentally, this is the same format as the dump command
              will produce.)  The database is first cleared unless the
              append (-A) switch has been given.

       make [file...]
              Make combines the operations of parse and load (q.v.), by
              storing each record after it has been parsed.

       parse [file...]
              This command will parse the contents of the specified files
              (or stdin if no files are given or when a file is `-'),
              according to the following syntax:

              value key key ...

              Whitespace delimit tokens and sharp signs (#) anywhere on a
              line begins comments unless any of them are quoted by a
              backslash (\) or put inside double quotes ("...") or angle
              brackets (<...>).  Lines beginning with whitespace are
              considered to be continuations of the previous line.  Note
              that multiple keys for a given value are legal.

       store key value [ key value ...]
              Store one or more key/value pairs explicitly mentioned on the
              command line.

EXAMPLES
       dbm -d foo clear                    create the database foo
       cat infile | dbm load foo           load it from the infile
       dbm parse xfile | dbm -AI load foo  add keys from the xfile...
       (or, shorter)                       ...not already present...
       dbm -I make xfile foo               ...in the database
       dbm fetch keya keyb foo             fetch values for the keys
       dbm -R store keyc valuec foo        overwrite previous keyc value
       dbm delete keyd valued              delete keyd and valued

SEE ALSO
       sendmail(1M), dbm(3X), ndbm(3C).

BUGS
       Should probably remove the sentinel when opening the database for
       write access (provided that the -S flag has been given).


Licensed material--property of copyright holder(s)