RECNO(3) RECNO(3)
NAME
recno - record number database access method
SYNOPSIS
#include
#include
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 cur-
sor, 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
include file as follows:
typedef struct {
u_long flags;
u_int cachesize;
u_int psize;
int lorder;
size_t reclen;
u_char 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 speci-
fied, 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 advi-
sory, and the access method will allocate more memory rather than fail. If cache-
size 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 underly-
ing 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 num-
ber 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 include file. This type is nor-
mally 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),
Document Processing in a Relational Database System, Michael Stonebraker, Heidi Stettner,
Joseph Kalash, Antonin Guttman, Nadene Lynn, Memorandum No. UCB/ERL M82/32, May 1982.
BUGS
Only big and little endian byte order is supported.
4.4 Berkeley Distribution 1994-08-18 RECNO(3)
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