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Annotation of embedaddon/php/ext/dba/README, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       misho       1: These functions build the foundation for accessing Berkeley DB style 
                      2: databases. 
                      3: 
                      4: This is a general abstraction layer for several file-based databases. As
                      5: such, functionality is limited to a common subset of features supported 
                      6: by modern databases such as Sleepycat Software's DB2. (This is not to be 
                      7: confused with IBM's DB2 software, which is supported through the ODBC 
                      8: functions.) 
                      9: 
                     10: This extensions allows to work with the following databases:
                     11: dbm      DBM is the oldest (original) type of Berkeley DB style databases.
                     12:          You should avoid it, if possible. We do not support the 
                     13:          compatibility functions built into DB2 and gdbm, because they are 
                     14:          only compatible on the source code level, but cannot handle the 
                     15:          original dbm format.  
                     16: ndbm     NDBM is a newer type and more flexible than dbm. It still has 
                     17:          most of the arbitrary limits of dbm (therefore it is deprecated).  
                     18: gdbm     GDBM is the GNU database manager.  
                     19: db2      DB2 is Sleepycat Software's DB2. It's described as "a programmatic
                     20:          toolkit that provides high-performance built-in database support 
                     21:          for both standalone and client/server applications.  
                     22: db3      DB3 is Sleepycat Software's DB3.  
                     23: db4      DB4 is Sleepycat Software's DB4. This is available since PHP 5.0.
                     24: cdb      CDB is "a fast, reliable, lightweight package for creating and 
                     25:          reading constant databases." It is from the author of qmail and 
                     26:          can be found at http://cr.yp.to/cdb.html. Since it is constant, 
                     27:          we support only reading operations. And since PHP 4.3.0 we support 
                     28:          writing (not updating) through the internal cdb library.  
                     29: cdb_make Since PHP 4.3.0 we support creation (not updating) of cdb files 
                     30:          when the bundled cdb library is used.  
                     31: flatfile This is available since PHP 4.3.0 for compatibility with the 
                     32:          deprecated dbm extension only and should be avoided. However you 
                     33:          may use this where files were created in this format. That happens 
                     34:          when configure could not find any external library.  
                     35: inifile  This is available since PHP 4.3.3 to be able to modify php.ini 
                     36:          files from within PHP scripts. When working with ini files you 
                     37:          can pass arrays of the form array(0=>group,1=>value_name) or 
                     38:          strings of the form "[group]value_name" where group is optional. 
                     39:          As the functions dba_firstkey() and dba_nextkey() return string 
                     40:          representations of the key there is a new function dba_key_split() 
                     41:          available since PHP 5 which allows to convert the string keys into 
                     42:          array keys without loosing FALSE.  
                     43: qdbm     This is available since PHP 5.0.0. The qdbm library can be loaded 
                     44:          from http://qdbm.sourceforge.net.  
                     45: 
                     46: 
                     47: After configuring and compiling PHP you must execute the following test
                     48: from commandline: 
                     49:   php run-tests.php ext/dba. 
                     50: This shows whether your combination of handlers works. Most problematic 
                     51: are dbm and ndbm which conflict with many installations. The reason for 
                     52: this is that on several systems these libraries are part of more than one
                     53: other library. The configuration test only prevents you from configuring 
                     54: malfaunctioning single handlers but not combinations.