NAME
exim_dbmbuild - Build a DBM file.
SYNOPSIS
exim_dbmbuild [-nolc] [-nozero] [-noduperr] [-nowarn] inputfile|-
outputfile
DESCRIPTION
The exim_dbmbuild program reads an input file containing keys and data
in the format used by the lsearch lookup (see section 9.1). It writes
a DBM file using the lower-cased alias names as keys and the remainder
of the information as data. The lower-casing can be prevented by
calling the program with the -nolc option.
A terminating zero is included as part of the key string. This is
expected by the dbm lookup type. However, if the option -nozero is
given, exim_dbmbuild creates files without terminating zeroes in either
the key strings or the data strings. The dbmnz lookup type can be used
with such files.
The program requires two arguments: the name of the input file (which
can be a single hyphen to indicate the standard input), and the name of
the output file. It creates the output under a temporary name, and
then renames it if all went well. If the native DB interface is in use
(USE_DB is set in a compile-time configuration file - this is common in
free versions of Unix) the two file names must be different, because in
this mode the Berkeley DB functions create a single output file using
exactly the name given. For example,
exim_dbmbuild /etc/aliases /etc/aliases.db
reads the system alias file and creates a DBM version of it in
/etc/aliases.db.
In systems that use the ndbm routines (mostly proprietary versions of
Unix), two files are used, with the suffixes .dir and .pag. In this
environment, the suffixes are added to the second argument of
exim_dbmbuild, so it can be the same as the first. This is also the
case when the Berkeley functions are used in compatibility mode (though
this is not recommended), because in that case it adds a .db suffix to
the file name.
If a duplicate key is encountered, the program outputs a warning, and
when it finishes, its return code is 1 rather than zero, unless the
-noduperr option is used. By default, only the first of a set of
duplicates is used - this makes it compatible with lsearch lookups.
There is an option -lastdup which causes it to use the data for the
last duplicate instead. There is also an option -nowarn, which stops
it listing duplicate keys to "stderr". For other errors, where it
doesn't actually make a new file, the return code is 2.
BUGS
This manual page needs a major re-work. If somebody knows better groff
than us and has more experience in writing manual pages, any patches
would be greatly appreciated.
SEE ALSO
exim(8), /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/
AUTHOR
This manual page was stitched together from spec.txt by Andreas Metzler
<ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but
may be used by others).
March 26, 2003