The -v option may be used to get a verbose description of the program's activities.
The -d option may be used to specify an alternate database. The default is given by the ``tbldbm'' configuration variable or by the MDBM mmdftailor variable.
If no arguments are given to dbmedit then the program goes into an interactive mode, and prompts the user for each command. Otherwise the arguments are taken as one command.
Commands in dbmedit refer to keys, tables, and values. Tables (see tables(5)) are hashed into the database using dbmbuild(8). (Tables that refer to domain name servers are not part of the database). The keys appear on the LHS of the tables and the values on the RHS. In general, only the first occurence of a value for a given key/table pair is significant. For example, the table entries:
table1:
key1: val1
key2: val2
table2:
key1: val3
key1: val4
get hashed into the following database entries:
key1 table1 val1
key1 table2 val3
key1 table2 val4
key2 table1 val2
(In the current implementation, the database is keyed on only
the key, and table/value pairs are encoded in the data portion.
This is likely to change but will not affect this or any other
program.)
The command lines in interactive mode are parsed using the standard MMDF string-to-argument routines so the same quoting and escape conventions are used. For example, if you want double-quotes or spaces in the value, they must be escaped with a backslash or the string must be quoted (for spaces).
The commands are:
All commands may be shortened to their first character only. If the wrong number of arguments is given to a command, a ``Usage:'' message will be printed. All changes are made in real time. This program may be used while MMDF processes are running. There is no temporary copy of the database while editing.