NAME

       gd_alter_encoding — modify the binary encoding of data in a dirfile

SYNOPSIS

       #include <getdata.h>

       int gd_alter_encoding(DIRFILE *dirfile, unsigned int encoding, int fragment_index, int
              recode);

DESCRIPTION

       The gd_alter_encoding() function sets the binary  encoding  of  the  format  specification
       fragment  given  by  fragment_index  to  byte_sex  in the dirfile(5) database specified by
       dirfile.  The binary encoding of a fragment indicate the encoding of data stored in binary
       files  associated  with RAW fields defined in the specified fragment.  The binary encoding
       of a fragment containing no RAW fields is ignored.

       The byte_sex argument should be one of the following:

              GD_UNENCODED, GD_BZIP2_ENCODED, GD_GZIP_ENCODED,
              GD_LZMA_ENCODED, GD_SLIM_ENCODED, GD_TEXT_ENCODED.

       See  gd_cbopen(3) and dirfile-encoding(5) for the meanings of these symbols and details on
       the supported encoding schemes.

       In addition to being simply a valid fragment index, fragment_index may also be the special
       value GD_ALL_FRAGMENTS, which indicates that the encoding of all fragments in the database
       should be changed.

       If the recode argument is non-zero, this call will recode the binary data of affected  RAW
       fields  to  account for the change in binary encoding.  If the encoding of the fragment is
       encoding insensitive, or if the data type is only one byte in size, no change is made.  If
       recode is zero, affected binary files are left untouched.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon successful completion, gd_alter_encoding() returns zero.  On error, it returns -1 and
       sets the dirfile error to a non-zero error value.  Possible error values are:

       GD_E_ACCMODE
               The specified dirfile was opened read-only.

       GD_E_ALLOC
               The library was unable to allocate memory.

       GD_E_BAD_DIRFILE
               The supplied dirfile was invalid.

       GD_E_BAD_INDEX
               The supplied index was out of range.

       GD_E_PROTECTED
               The metadata of the given format specification fragment was protected from change,
               or  the  binary  data  of  the  fragment was protected from change and binary file
               recoding was requested.

       GD_E_RAW_IO
               An I/O error occurred while attempting to recode a binary file.

       GD_E_UNCLEAN_DB
               An error occurred while moving the recoded file into  place.   As  a  result,  the
               database  may  be  in  an unclean state.  See the NOTES section below for recovery
               instructions.  In this case, the dirfile will be flagged as  invalid,  to  prevent
               further database corruption.  It should be immediately closed.

       GD_E_UNKNOWN_ENCODING
               The encoding scheme of the fragment is unknown.

       GD_E_UNSUPPORTED
               The encoding scheme of the fragment does not support binary file recoding.

       The dirfile error may be retrieved by calling gd_error(3).  A descriptive error string for
       the last error encountered can be obtained from a call to gd_error_string(3).

NOTES

       A binary file recoding occurs out-of-place.  As a result, sufficient space must be present
       on  the  filesystem for the binary files of all RAW fields in the fragment both before and
       after translation.  If all fragments  are  updated  by  specifying  GD_ALL_FRAGMENTS,  the
       recoding occurs one fragment at a time.

       An  error  code  of GD_E_UNCLEAN_DB indicates a system error occurred while moving the re-
       encoded binary data into place or when deleting  the  old  data.   If  this  happens,  the
       database may be left in an unclean state.  The caller should check the filesystem directly
       to ascertain the state of the dirfile data before continuing.  For recovery  instructions,
       see the file /usr/share/doc/getdata/unclean_database_recovery.txt.

SEE ALSO

       gd_cbopen(3),   gd_error(3),   gd_error_string(3),  gd_encoding(3),  dirfile(5),  dirfile-
       format(5)