bionic (8) exim_dbmbuild.8.gz

NAME

       exim_dbmbuild - Build a DBM file.

SYNOPSIS

       exim_dbmbuild [-nolc] [-nozero] [-noduperr] [-nowarn] inputfile|- outputfile

DESCRIPTION

       The  exim_dbmbuild program reads an input file containing keys and data in the format used by the lsearch
       lookup (see section 9.1).  It writes a DBM file using  the  lower-cased  alias  names  as  keys  and  the
       remainder  of the information as data.  The lower-casing can be prevented by calling the program with the
       -nolc option.

       A terminating zero is included as part of the key string.  This is  expected  by  the  dbm  lookup  type.
       However, if the option -nozero is given, exim_dbmbuild creates files without terminating zeroes in either
       the key strings or the data strings.  The dbmnz lookup type can be used with such files.

       The program requires two arguments: the name of the input file (which can be a single hyphen to  indicate
       the  standard input), and the name of the output file.  It creates the output under a temporary name, and
       then renames it if all went well.  If the native DB interface is in use (USE_DB is set in a  compile-time
       configuration  file  -  this  is  common  in free versions of Unix) the two file names must be different,
       because in this mode the Berkeley DB functions create a single output file using exactly the name  given.
       For example,

         exim_dbmbuild /etc/aliases /etc/aliases.db

       reads the system alias file and creates a DBM version of it in /etc/aliases.db.

       In systems that use the ndbm routines (mostly proprietary versions of Unix), two files are used, with the
       suffixes .dir and .pag.  In  this  environment,  the  suffixes  are  added  to  the  second  argument  of
       exim_dbmbuild, so it can be the same as the first.  This is also the case when the Berkeley functions are
       used in compatibility mode (though this is not recommended), because in that case it adds a .db suffix to
       the file name.

       If  a  duplicate key is encountered, the program outputs a warning, and when it finishes, its return code
       is 1 rather than zero, unless the -noduperr option is used.  By default, only  the  first  of  a  set  of
       duplicates  is  used  - this makes it compatible with lsearch lookups.  There is an option -lastdup which
       causes it to use the data for the last duplicate instead.  There is also an option -nowarn,  which  stops
       it  listing duplicate keys to “stderr”.  For other errors, where it doesn't actually make a new file, the
       return code is 2.

BUGS

       This manual page needs a major re-work. If somebody knows better groff than us and has more experience in
       writing manual pages, any patches would be greatly appreciated.

SEE ALSO

       exim(8), /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/

AUTHOR

       This manual page was stitched together from spec.txt by Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>,
       for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).

                                                 March 26, 2003                                 EXIM_DBMBUILD(8)