man NDBM_File () - Tied access to ndbm files

NAME

NDBM_File - Tied access to ndbm files

SYNOPSIS

  use Fcntl;   # For O_RDWR, O_CREAT, etc.
  use NDBM_File;


  # Now read and change the hash
  $h{newkey} = newvalue;
  print $h{oldkey}; 
  ...


  untie %h;

DESCRIPTION

CWNDBM_File establishes a connection between a Perl hash variable and a file in NDBM_File format;. You can manipulate the data in the file just as if it were in a Perl hash, but when your program exits, the data will remain in the file, to be used the next time your program runs.

Use CWNDBM_File with the Perl built-in CWtie function to establish the connection between the variable and the file. The arguments to CWtie should be:

1.
The hash variable you want to tie.
2.
The string CW"NDBM_File". (Ths tells Perl to use the CWNDBM_File package to perform the functions of the hash.)
3.
The name of the file you want to tie to the hash.
4.
Flags. Use one of: Read-only access to the data in the file. Write-only access to the data in the file. Both read and write access. If you want to create the file if it does not exist, add CWO_CREAT to any of these, as in the example. If you omit CWO_CREAT and the file does not already exist, the CWtie call will fail.
5.
The default permissions to use if a new file is created. The actual permissions will be modified by the user's umask, so you should probably use 0666 here. (See umask in perlfunc.)

DIAGNOSTICS

On failure, the CWtie call returns an undefined value and probably sets CW$! to contain the reason the file could not be tied. This warning is emmitted when you try to store a key or a value that is too long. It means that the change was not recorded in the database. See BUGS AND WARNINGS below.

BUGS AND WARNINGS

There are a number of limits on the size of the data that you can store in the NDBM file. The most important is that the length of a key, plus the length of its associated value, may not exceed 1008 bytes.

See tie in perlfunc, perldbmfilter, Fcntl