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)