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NAME

       btree - btree database access method

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <db.h>

DESCRIPTION

       The  routine dbopen(3) is the library interface to database files.  One
       of the supported file formats is btree files.  The general  description
       of  the  database  access  methods  is  in  dbopen(3), this manual page
       describes only the btree specific information.

       The btree data structure is a sorted, balanced tree  structure  storing
       associated key/data pairs.

       The  btree  access method specific data structure provided to dbopen(3)
       is defined in the <db.h> include file as follows:

           typedef struct {
               unsigned long flags;
               unsigned int  cachesize;
               int           maxkeypage;
               int           minkeypage;
               unsigned int  psize;
               int         (*compare)(const DBT *key1, const DBT *key2);
               size_t      (*prefix)(const DBT *key1, const DBT *key2);
               int           lorder;
           } BTREEINFO;

       The elements of this structure are as follows:

       flags  The flag value is specified  by  or’ing  any  of  the  following
              values:

              R_DUP  Permit  duplicate  keys  in  the  tree,  that  is, permit
                     insertion if the key to be inserted already exists in the
                     tree.   The  default behavior, as described in dbopen(3),
                     is to overwrite a matching key when inserting a  new  key
                     or  to  fail if the R_NOOVERWRITE flag is specified.  The
                     R_DUP flag is overridden by the R_NOOVERWRITE  flag,  and
                     if  the  R_NOOVERWRITE  flag  is  specified,  attempts to
                     insert duplicate keys into the tree will fail.

                     If the database contains duplicate  keys,  the  order  of
                     retrieval  of  key/data  pairs  is  undefined  if the get
                     routine is used, however,  seq  routine  calls  with  the
                     R_CURSOR  flag set will always return the logical "first"
                     of any group of duplicate keys.

       cachesize
              A suggested maximum size (in bytes) of the memory  cache.   This
              value is only advisory, and the access method will allocate more
              memory rather than fail.  Since every search examines  the  root
              page   of  the  tree,  caching  the  most  recently  used  pages
              substantially  improves  access  time.   In  addition,  physical
              writes  are delayed as long as possible, so a moderate cache can
              reduce the number of I/O operations  significantly.   Obviously,
              using  a  cache increases (but only increases) the likelihood of
              corruption or lost data if the system crashes while  a  tree  is
              being  modified.   If  cachesize  is  0 (no size is specified) a
              default cache is used.

       maxkeypage
              The maximum number of keys which will be stored  on  any  single
              page.  Not currently implemented.

       minkeypage
              The  minimum  number  of keys which will be stored on any single
              page.  This value is used to determine which keys will be stored
              on overflow pages, that is, if a key or data item is longer than
              the pagesize divided by the minkeypage value, it will be  stored
              on  overflow pages instead of in the page itself.  If minkeypage
              is 0 (no minimum number of keys is specified) a value  of  2  is
              used.

       psize  Page  size is the size (in bytes) of the pages used for nodes in
              the tree.  The minimum page size is 512 bytes  and  the  maximum
              page  size  is 64K.  If psize is 0 (no page size is specified) a
              page size is chosen based on  the  underlying  file  system  I/O
              block size.

       compare
              Compare  is  the  key  comparison  function.   It must return an
              integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if  the  first
              key  argument  is considered to be respectively less than, equal
              to,  or  greater  than  the  second  key  argument.   The   same
              comparison  function  must be used on a given tree every time it
              is opened.  If  compare  is  NULL  (no  comparison  function  is
              specified),  the  keys are compared lexically, with shorter keys
              considered less than longer keys.

       prefix Prefix is the prefix comparison function.   If  specified,  this
              routine  must  return  the  number  of  bytes  of the second key
              argument which are necessary to determine  that  it  is  greater
              than  the  first  key  argument.  If the keys are equal, the key
              length should be returned.  Note, the usefulness of this routine
              is  very  data-dependent,  but,  in  some  data sets can produce
              significantly reduced tree sizes and search times.  If prefix is
              NULL  (no  prefix  function  is  specified),  and  no comparison
              function is specified, a default lexical comparison  routine  is
              used.   If prefix is NULL and a comparison routine is specified,
              no prefix comparison is done.

       lorder The byte order for integers in  the  stored  database  metadata.
              The  number  should  represent  the  order  as  an  integer; for
              example, big endian order would be the number 4,321.  If  lorder
              is 0 (no order is specified) the current host order is used.

       If the file already exists (and the O_TRUNC flag is not specified), the
       values specified for the arguments flags, lorder and psize are  ignored
       in favor of the values used when the tree was created.

       Forward  sequential  scans  of  a  tree  are  from the least key to the
       greatest.

       Space freed up by deleting  key/data  pairs  from  the  tree  is  never
       reclaimed,  although  it  is  normally  made available for reuse.  This
       means  that  the  btree  storage  structure  is  grow-only.   The  only
       solutions  are  to avoid excessive deletions, or to create a fresh tree
       periodically from a scan of an existing one.

       Searches, insertions, and deletions in a btree will all complete  in  O
       lg  base  N  where  base  is the average fill factor.  Often, inserting
       ordered  data  into  btrees  results  in  a  low  fill  factor.    This
       implementation  has  been  modified  to make ordered insertion the best
       case, resulting in a much better than normal page fill factor.

ERRORS

       The btree access method routines may fail and set errno for any of  the
       errors specified for the library routine dbopen(3).

BUGS

       Only big and little endian byte order is supported.

SEE ALSO

       dbopen(3), hash(3), mpool(3), recno(3)

       The  Ubiquitous  B-tree,  Douglas  Comer, ACM Comput. Surv. 11, 2 (June
       1979), 121-138.

       Prefix B-trees, Bayer  and  Unterauer,  ACM  Transactions  on  Database
       Systems, Vol. 2, 1 (March 1977), 11-26.

       The  Art  of  Computer  Programming Vol. 3: Sorting and Searching, D.E.
       Knuth, 1968, pp 471-480.

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A
       description  of  the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

                                  1994-08-18