GNU dbm NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2013-12-25 Copyright (C) 1990-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. See the end of file for copying conditions. Please send gdbm bug reports to . Version 1.11, 2013-12-25 * Improved dump format. A new dump format is implemented, which encodes all data in base64 and stores not only key/data pairs, but also the original database file metadata, such as file name, mode and ownership. Files in this format can be sent without additional encapsulation over transmission channels that normally allow only ASCII data. Dumps in this format allow for restoring an exact copy of the database, including file ownership and privileges. * New function: gdbm_count int gdbm_count (GDBM_FILE *file, gdbm_count *count); Counts records in `file' and stores the result in the memory location pointed to by `count'. * New utilities: gdbm_dump and gdbm_load. Gdbm_dump creates a plain-text dump of the GDBM database. This dump can be used to create an exact copy of the database afterward. The gdbm_load performs the reverse: given the dump file, it creates a GDBM database. Apart from native GDBM dump formats, it also understands the format generated by Berkeley DB db_dump utility. Thus, an easy way to convert a Berkeley DB database to GDBM is: db_dump input.db | gdbm_load output.db * gdbmtool The gdbmtool utility allows you to examine, modify or create GDBM databases. It provides an easy-to-use interactive shell and can be used for scripting. One of the unique features of gdbmtool is that it allows to define datum structures for key and content parts, similarly to the C "struct" declarations, and to input and display such structured data. Version 1.10, 2011-11-13 * Internationalization This version of GDBM is fully internationalized. The following localizations are available: Finnish, German, Japanese, Polish and Ukrainian. * Support for close-on-exec flag in gdbm_open (see GDBM_CLOEXEC in the docs). * Improve testgdbm command system The testgdbm tool now supports multicharacter commands. * Bugfixes Bug numbers below refer to the tracker at ** Bug #150. Tolerate I/O operations returning less bytes than expected. Retry I/O if possible. ** Bug #151 Gdbm_open now initializes with zeros the memory allocated for file header. Previous versions left uninitialized portions intact, so they contained whatever happened to be in that memory region at the moment of allocation. This created undesired security implications. ** Fix handling of NDBM databases in read-only mode. Version 1.9.1 * Bugfix Improperly used preprocessor directive caused compilation failure when using gcc 4.4.4 or newer. Version 1.9, 2011-08-12 * Use of mmap To speed up I/O operations, mmap(2) is used when available. It can be disabled at compile time using --disable-memory-mapped-io, and at run time by giving GDBM_NOMMAP flag to gdbm_open. * Changes in compatibility mode The changes below fix several long-standing bugs in ndbm compatibility code, which made it impossible to use GDBM with Sendmail and Postfix. Now that they are fixed, GDBM can be used with these MTAs. ** Locking is disabled. Neither ndbm nor dbm functions lock their files. This bug was reported, in particular, in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=663932 ** Do not link pag to dir. Instead of linking pag to dir as previous versions did, GDBM now creates a separate dir file. Consequently, dbm_pagfno and dbm_dirfno return different file descriptors. When opening an existing database as a writer, GDBM determines if dir is linked to pag, and if so breaks the link and creates a new dir file. When such a database is opened in a read-only mode, GDBM does not attempt to alter the link. * gdbm_setopt New options are implemented for use with gdbm_setopt function. In particular, a set of options is provided for retrieving various database parameters, such as the file name, memory mapping status, etc. * The testgdbm program is installed Testgdbm is an interactive tool for manipulating GDBM database files. It allows you to view or update existing databases, export them to the portable flat file format and to create new database files. * A testsuite is provided. * Improved documentation. Version 1.8.3 * Various configure related changes and additional updates. Version 1.8.2 * Allow `NEWDB'-opened databases to actually, well, store records. Version 1.8.1 * Lots of bug fixes, including a data corruption bug. * Updated to current autoconf and libtool. * Moved the dbm/ndbm compatibility routines to libgdbm_compat. Version 1.8 * Added GDBM_CENTFREE functionality and option. * Added GDBM_COALESCEBLKS functionality and option. * Added GDBM_NOLOCK flag. * Made ``fast'' mode the default, making GDBM_FAST obsolete, and adding the GDBM_SYNC flag and GDBM_SYNCMODE option. * Switched to building with libtool. Version 1.7.3 * Fixed a couple of last minute problems. Namely, no autoconf.h in version.c, and no GDBM_FASTMODE in gdbm.h! * Fixed some documentation bugs. Version 1.7.2 * Enhanced portability and compile/installation changes. * Additional, "fast mode" related gdbm_setopt() option. * Growth problems bug fix. Version 1.7.1 * Enhanced portabilty and compile/installation bug fixes. * Switched over to using an auto config header. * Slight documentation upgrade. Version 1.7 * A new dynamic, delayed initialization, bucket cache. * New gdbm_setopt(), gdbm_exists(), and gdbm_strerror() routines. * Slightly improved dbm/ndbm compatibility. * Greatly improved portability to 64 or 16 bit machines. * Various bug fixes. Version 1.6 * New documentation in both man and texinfo formats. * Bug fixes. * A New "writers" mode that does not fsync the database. * Uses Autoconf now. Version 1.5 * Minor bug fixes. See the ChangeLog. * Added gdbmconst.h to allow users to change the size of the * bucket cache in the systems.h file. Version 1.4 * Mainly bug fixes * A define for "dbmclose()" was added to dbm.h for those few implementaions that need that call. * For details, see the ChangeLog. Version 1.0 * Makefiles were combined into one and a few new things added to it. * Several minor bugs were fixed including a cache bug. * Two new calls (dbm_pagfno, dbm_dirfno) were added to the NDBM interface. * A conversion program from dbm files to gdbm files was added. * Reorganize was changed to allow complex file names. (dir/file form) * testgdbm, testndbm, and testdbm were modified to return key and data pairs where needed and to take an optional file name as an argument. testgdbm had some command characters changed. * The DBM and NDBM interfaces were separated. * An include file for dbm users was added. (dbm.h) * The include file for ndbm users was renamed ndbm.h. (It was gndbm.h.) Version 0.9 * The hash function changed. * The file format changed. * There was a complete rewrite of falloc.c. * There were added compatiblity routines for ndbm. * The file names for dbm compatibility routines were made to look like dbm. * Test programs changed. * Support for System V. * Various other small changes. * The need for recovery and associated code was removed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright information: Copyright (C) 1990-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn. Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions, provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last changed them. 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