NAME

       cdbmake - create a constant database

SYNOPSIS

       cdbmake cdb cdb.tmp

DESCRIPTION

       cdbmake reads a series of encoded records from its standard input and writes a constant database to cdb.

       cdbmake ensures that cdb is updated atomically, so programs reading cdb never have to wait for cdbmake to
       finish.  It does this by first writing the database to cdb.tmp and then moving cdb.tmp on top of cdb.  If
       cdb.tmp  already exists, it is destroyed.  The directories containing cdb.tmp and cdb must be writable to
       cdbmake; they must also be on the same filesystem.

       cdbmake always makes sure that cdb.tmp is safely written to disk before it replaces cdb.  If the input is
       in  a  bad format or if cdbmake has any trouble writing cdb.tmp to disk, cdbmake complains and leaves cdb
       alone.

   RECORD FORMAT
       Records are indexed by keys.  A key is a string.  cdb is structured so  that  another  program,  starting
       from  a  key,  can  quickly  find the relevant record.  cdbmake allows several records with the same key,
       although most readers take only the first record, and cdbmake slows  down  somewhat  if  there  are  many
       records with the same key.

       cdbmake and cdbdump(1) preserve the order of records.

       A  record  is encoded for cdbmake as +klen,dlen:key->data followed by a newline.  Here klen is the number
       of bytes in key and dlen is the number of bytes in data.  The end  of  data  is  indicated  by  an  extra
       newline.  For example:

         +3,5:one->Hello
         +3,7:two->Goodbye

       key and data may contain any characters, including colons, dashes, newlines, and nulls.

       Keys and data do not have to fit into memory.  A database cannot exceed 4 gigabytes.

       cdb is portable across machines.

SEE ALSO

       cdbdump(1), cdbget(1), cdbstats(1)

                                                                                                      cdbmake(1)