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RECNO(3)                   Library Functions Manual                   RECNO(3)

NAME
     recno - record number database access method

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

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

     The record number data structure is either variable or fixed-length
     records stored in a flat-file format, accessed by the logical record
     number.  The existence of record number five implies the existence of
     records one through four, and the deletion of record number one causes
     record number five to be renumbered to record number four, as well as the
     cursor, if positioned after record number one, to shift down one record.

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

     typedef struct {
             u_long flags;
             u_int cachesize;
             u_int psize;
             int lorder;
             size_t reclen;
             uint8_t bval;
             char *bfname;
     } RECNOINFO;

     The elements of this structure are defined as follows:

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

                       R_FIXEDLEN   The records are fixed-length, not byte
                                    delimited.  The structure element reclen
                                    specifies the length of the record, and
                                    the structure element bval is used as the
                                    pad character.  Any records, inserted into
                                    the database, that are less than reclen
                                    bytes long are automatically padded.

                       R_NOKEY      In the interface specified by dbopen(),
                                    the sequential record retrieval fills in
                                    both the caller's key and data structures.
                                    If the R_NOKEY flag is specified, the
                                    cursor routines are not required to fill
                                    in the key structure.  This permits
                                    applications to retrieve records at the
                                    end of files without reading all of the
                                    intervening records.

                       R_SNAPSHOT   This flag requires that a snapshot of the
                                    file be taken when dbopen() is called,
                                    instead of permitting any unmodified
                                    records to be read from the original file.

     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.  If cachesize is 0 (no
                 size is specified) a default cache is used.

     psize       The recno access method stores the in-memory copies of its
                 records in a btree.  This value is the size (in bytes) of the
                 pages used for nodes in that tree.  If psize is 0 (no page
                 size is specified) a page size is chosen based on the
                 underlying file system I/O block size.  See btree(3) for more
                 information.

     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.

     reclen      The length of a fixed-length record.

     bval        The delimiting byte to be used to mark the end of a record
                 for variable-length records, and the pad character for fixed-
                 length records.  If no value is specified, newlines ("\n")
                 are used to mark the end of variable-length records and
                 fixed-length records are padded with spaces.

     bfname      The recno access method stores the in-memory copies of its
                 records in a btree.  If bfname is non-NULL, it specifies the
                 name of the btree file, as if specified as the file name for
                 a dbopen() of a btree file.

     The data part of the key/data pair used by the recno access method is the
     same as other access methods.  The key is different.  The data field of
     the key should be a pointer to a memory location of type recno_t, as
     defined in the <db.h> include file.  This type is normally the largest
     unsigned integral type available to the implementation.  The size field
     of the key should be the size of that type.

     Because there can be no meta-data associated with the underlying recno
     access method files, any changes made to the default values (e.g., fixed
     record length or byte separator value) must be explicitly specified each
     time the file is opened.

     In the interface specified by dbopen(), using the put interface to create
     a new record will cause the creation of multiple, empty records if the
     record number is more than one greater than the largest record currently
     in the database.

ERRORS
     The recno access method routines may fail and set errno for any of the
     errors specified for the library routine dbopen(3) or the following:

     EINVAL             An attempt was made to add a record to a fixed-length
                        database that was too large to fit.

SEE ALSO
     btree(3), dbopen(3), hash(3), mpool(3)


     Michael Stonebraker, Heidi Stettner, Joseph Kalash, Antonin Guttman, and
     Nadene Lynn, "Document Processing in a Relational Database System",
     Memorandum No. UCB/ERL M82/32, May 1982.

BUGS
     Only big and little endian byte order is supported.

NetBSD 10.99                    April 17, 2003                    NetBSD 10.99