version 0.11.0-20080519-114741

download (30744 bytes) sig

Functions sadd and sdir removed for re-write

The "find" function now returns FALSE in case it does not find anything. This is to more easily differ from the case when it returns a blank result, which, from shell, does look alike.

The "sadd" and "sdir" functions have proven badly designed, so they will be re-invented with another algorithm. This is an intermediate version which removes the old "sadd" and "sdir" function. If you need the old behavior, stick to version 0.10.x

version 0.10.1-20080407-040731

download (31239 bytes) sig

Improved: Option -a Added: Option -n and -u

Option -a still was too slow on outputs. Now output is processed in "batches", too.

Option -u flushes output as soon as meaningful. Together with Option -a this nearly brings back the old behavior (db close on each line).

Option -n suppresses fsync() on the GDBM file. Changes in the DB are factors faster on machines which are heavily loaded with IO. Especially useful on option -a and batch commands. However the DBM is not synced anymore, so a sudden power loss can have a more bad impact then it already has (often I observed that a sudden power loss corrupts the DBM).

version 0.10.0-20070806-101555

download (30382 bytes)

Improved: Option -a Started to add "Sorted keys directory structure"

Option -a was very slow. Now input is processed in "batches", that is the database is closed only between actual read() calls.

Also new experimental "sadd" and "sdir" commands introduced. "sget" and "sfind" are still missing.

version 0.9.2-20070407-210740

download (28935 bytes)

Bugfix: Now exit(11) in case that the output pipe goes away.

When output is futile, DBM shall go away, as further processing is no more interesting (as nothing which outputs data does not alter data).

And to stress it again:

Currently I use DBM in a fairly complex environment with several dozens of scripts running parallely on a handful DBM files concurrently. So I am was able to hunt down some really weird race conditions and pitfalls. I am now pretty sure that I cought the most. But one thing cannot be fixed:

Read the virus scanner warning when using DBM under CygWin. If you have several concurrently running processes under Windows which use DBM on the same file, you will see that they either starve all or a lot of DBM processes start to pile up until your system becomes totally unusable. In this case do following:

• Disable the online virus scanner.
• Set the priority of the DBM processes to lowest possible value.
• Kill the processes, each. After some hours they might go away.
• Uninstall the online virus scanner component and reboot your PC.

Again, this is no fault of DBM. DBM works correctly as designed. It has no means to detect or circumvent such a case where online virus scanners lock files for some time after they were closed or opened by an application. DBM only(!) tries 10 times a second to get a lock on the DBM file. Note that this rate is *low*, as you need N second timeout for N processes concurrently accessing the file with this low rate to have a high enough chance to get the lock on the DBM file. Now, if a virus scanner is able to scan the file 100 times a second and you have 5 DBM processes concurrently trying to lock the file, this means that you have a 50:50 chance that you get into trouble.

version 0.9.1-20070326-202709

download (26860 bytes)

Bugfix: balter did not work (bug in db_cmp() removed)

version 0.9.0-20070326-181947

(28601 bytes archive)

Bugfix: Storing an empty key via batch/nbatch did not work (OOPS!) Major overhaul: (For some time it's probably more safe to use the 0.8.2!) - import and export commands. - "Advanced timeout" which closes DB while in blocking reads/writes. - Also little change in "bget" command to be more intuitive. - "bdel" now can check for the data value like "delete". CygWin Bugfix: Open may break on EBUSY for some reason. In this case the timeout was not effective. The sleep time for timeouts now is seeded by rand() to distribute the waiting.

Import/Export:

XML like import and export allow easy copy of a DB contents:

dbm create DB2; dbm export DB1 | dbm import DB2

Option -a for advanced timeout added:

This works like -q, but keeps the DB closed during most operations. It has a higher overhead, as it must open the DB for each operation, though, but it allows a better batch integration, for example:

# Most missing feature in BASH are piped coprocesses
# (open zillions of pipes to zillions of coprocess each)
# You cannot help with <(proc) and >(proc) as this needs /dev/fd
# Idea:
# 3| creates a pipe from FD3 to STDIN
# |5 creates a pipe from STDOUT to FD5
# exec 3| process |4 exec 2|5 exec
# creates a coprocess, listening on FD3, writing to FD4 and FD5

{
# Save STDOUT to FD3; Note the unintuitive IO-redirection below:
exec 3>&1

find dir -type f -print |
dbm -a-1 filter DB/check |
while read -r a
do
if check "$a"
then
echo "$a" >&4
else
echo "$a" >&5
fi
# Trick: Bring back STDOUT from FD3
done 4>&1 >&3 |

# Pipe to "ok" was saved to FD4
dbm -a-1 nbatch DB/check ok 5>&1 >&3 |

# PIPE to "ko" was saved to FD5
dbm -a-1 nbatch DB/check ko
}

Alternatively with files with filenames without TABs:

find dir -type f -print |
dbm -a-1 filter DB/check |

# Read files from STDIN and output
# FILENAME TAB ok|ko
check |

# The character in '' is a TAB
dbm -a-1 brep DB/check '	'

The "bget" change is as follows:

Previously following did not print anything:

dbm list DB | dbm bget DB

{ dbm list DB; echo; } | dbm bget DB

Note that the old behavior is intended and still is present on bget0 (so a line not terminated by 0 is considered invalid).

Important Windows bug with online virus scanners

The virus scanners can prohibit dbm to open the file. In such cases there is no other way than to switch off the virus scanner.

It seems to happen when the virus scanner is too slow to keep up the pace with DBM, while DBM processes try to open the DB concurrently. In this case as the online protection does a first virus scan on the file and keeps it open such that it cannot be locked by another DBM process in the meanwhile. These other process sleeps and reopens the file later. However for this open the virus scanner starts a second(!) parallel virus scan on the file (it must do so before the open, else it would not be able to protect). But when the sleep time is not long enough for the first virus scan to finish, we now have a deadlock, as no DBM can successfully lock the DBM file ever: It simply always is open by one or more processes scanning the file against viri. This is even more complicated if the virus scanner runs under the thread priority of the process, as then slow processes can lead to hours (literally!) of unusable DBMs.

Thats not a bug of DBM. It's a fundamental design flaw of online virus scanners under Windows. So the only advice I can give is: Under windows never even try to open DBM files concurrently while an online virus scanner is active. Period.

Side-Advice: If you do not have a virus but some computer problem, then try to switch off the online virus scanner first. Often the problem vanishes. For example, switching off my virus scanner improves the "find.exe" from CygWin by factor 1000 or even much more. (This is because the Virus scanner *must* scan all files find.exe touches. Again this is a fundamental flaw of online virus scanner technology under Windows.)

version 0.8.2-20070113-020406

download (21724 bytes)

Small improvement in error handling

The database now is closed before something is printed. This helps in the "stopped terminal" situation.

version 0.8.1-20060812-142632

download (21554 bytes)

Option -q for quiet timeouts added

It is like option -t but inhibits the sleep warning.

version 0.8.0-20060812-004531

download (21564 bytes)

Batch version of "alter" commands balter and balter0 added

There was a bug in the alter command in case the third argument was not present. This shall be fixed now.

The code now becomes more and more hacked. This is not good. So it shall be rewritten from scratch with a more clean structure. However I do not have the time to do a clean rewrite (sigh).

version 0.7.0-20060722-025556

(20554 bytes archive)

Memory leaks fixed, "bget"/"bget0" added and "list" improved

There was a memory leak as the allocated pointers were not freed. Most commands did not have any problem, but all list commands which read data from the database were affected:

filter, find, search, list, dump

Also there is a new command "bget" for a batch type get:

find . -type f -print |
dbm bget DB/files '
' '
' |
while read -r file && read -r data
do
: whatever
done

Beware of filenames with LF in it. Find knows a "-print0" so dbm knows a "bget0", too.

Also the "list" command now is able to output NUL or other strings as line terminator.

License and Disclaimer

All you can see here is free software according to the GNU GPL.
Copyright (C)2000-2011 by Valentin Hilbig
Note that the software comes with absolutely no warranty of any kind.
You use the software at your own risk.
Valentin Hilbig cannot be hold responsible for any unintended damage,
lost data or malfunction of the software you can find here.