NAME

       db_dump185 - dump DB 1.85 legacy database files

SYNOPSIS

       db_dump185 [-p] [-f output] db_file

DESCRIPTION

       The  db_dump185  utility reads the version 1.85 database file db_file and writes it to the
       standard output using a portable flat-text format understood by  the  db_load(1)  utility.
       The argument db_file must be a file produced using the version 1.85 DB library functions.

       The options are as follows:

       -f   Write to the specified file instead of to the standard output.

       -p   If  characters in either the key or data items are printing characters (as defined by
            isprint(3)), use printing characters in file to represent them.  This option  permits
            users to use standard text editors to modify the contents of databases.

            Note,  different  systems  may  have  different  notions  as  to  what characters are
            ``printing'', and databases dumped in this manner may be less  portable  to  external
            systems.

       Dumping  and  reloading hash databases that use user-defined hash functions will result in
       new databases that use the default hash function.  While using the default  hash  function
       may not be optimal for the new database, it will continue to work correctly.

       Dumping and reloading btree databases that use user-defined prefix or comparison functions
       will result in new databases that use the default prefix  and  comparison  functions.   In
       this  case,  it is quite likely that the database will be damaged beyond repair permitting
       neither record storage or retrieval.

       The only available workaround for either case is to modify the sources for the  db_load(1)
       utility to load the database using the correct hash, prefix and comparison functions.

       The db_dump utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

OUTPUT FORMATS

       There are two output formats used by db_dump.

       In  both  output  formats,  the  first  few lines of the output contain header information
       describing the underlying access  method,  filesystem  page  size  and  other  bookkeeping
       information.   This  information  is output in ``name=value'' pairs, where ``name'' may be
       any of the keywords listed in the db_load(1) manual page, and ``value'' will be its value.
       While  this  header  information  can  be edited before the database is reloaded, there is
       rarely any reason to do so, as all of this information can be overridden  by  command-line
       arguments to db_load.

       Following  the  header  information  are  the  key/data  pairs  from the database.  If the
       database being dumped is of type btree or hash, the output will be paired lines  of  text,
       where  the  first line of the pair is the key item, and the second line of the pair is its
       corresponding data item.  If the database being dumped is of type recno, the  output  will
       be lines of text, where each line is a new data item for the database.

       If  the  -p  option  was  specified,  each  output  line will consist of single characters
       representing any characters from  the  database  that  were  ``printing'',  and  backslash
       (``\'')  escaped  characters for any that were not.  Backslash characters appearing in the
       output mean one of two things: if  the  backslash  character  precedes  another  backslash
       character,  it  means that a literal backslash character occurred in the key or data item.
       If the backslash character precedes any other character, the next two characters should be
       interpreted as hexadecimal specification of a single character, e.g., ``\0a'' is a newline
       character in the ASCII character set.

       If the -p option was not specified, each output line will consist  of  paired  hexadecimal
       values, e.g., the line ``726f6f74'' is the string ``root'' in the ASCII character set.

       In both output formats, a single newline character ends both the key and data items.

SEE ALSO

       isprint(3)

       The  DB  library  is  a  family of groups of functions that provides a modular programming
       interface to transactions and record-oriented file access.  The library  includes  support
       for  transactions,  locking,  logging  and  file  page caching, as well as various indexed
       access methods.  Many of the functional groups (e.g., the file page caching functions) are
       useful  independent  of  the  other  DB  functions,  although  some  functional groups are
       explicitly based on other functional groups (e.g., transactions and logging).

       db_archive(1), db_checkpoint(1), db_deadlock(1), db_dump(1), db_load(1), db_recover(1),
       db_stat(1).  (Note that on Debian systems, some of these manpages and programs have been
       renamed to things like db4.3_stat to distinguish between the multiple DB versions.)