EXIM_DBMBUILD(8)                                              System Manager's Manual                                             EXIM_DBMBUILD(8)

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  pre-
       vented 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                                                  EXIM_DBMBUILD(8)