DBMFETCH(1)

NAME

dbmfetch - fetch text from dbm files

SYNOPSIS

dbmfetch [ options ] dbmfile key(s)

DESCRIPTION

dbmfetch fetches the text from one or more nodes in the dbm file dbmfile, as specified by key(s). One node or multiple nodes may be fetched.

There are several option flags:

-b
Data value(s) being fetched are expected to be arbitrary binary data.
-ml
Multiline: if a value consists of multiple lines (i.e. contains embedded newline characters), print the second and following lines preceded by an extra tab character. (Only really useful with -v; also essentially implies -nl.) Values so fetched can be fed into dbmstore with its -f and -ml options.
-n
Append a null character (`\0') to each key before looking it up in the dbm file.
[It is also possible, by recompiling with the conditional-compilation macro AUTONULL enabled, to have dbmfetch essentially intuit the presence or absence of the null, by retrying failed fetches with the sense of the flag reversed.]
-nl
If the last character of a value happens to be a newline, don't print an extra newline.
-v
Verbose; precede each value with its key, separated by a tab character.
-x
Hexadecimal: print data values as a string of hex digits. (With -ml, break long hex strings onto multiple lines.)
-version
Print program's version number.
-?, -h
Print a brief usage summary / help message.

HISTORY

This documentation corresponds to version 2.3 of the dbmtools package.

See http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/src/#dbmtools for possible updates.

SEE ALSO

dbmstore, dbmdump, dbmdelete, dbmutil
dbm(3), ndbm(3), gdbm(3)

AUTHOR

Steve Summit, scs@eskimo.com