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)