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    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.