Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!sun-spots-request
From: utzoo!henry@cs.utexas.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: dbm(3x) discrepancy on Sun386i / Sun-3
Keywords: Software
Message-ID: <2417@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 89 20:09:16 GMT
Sender: root@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 16
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 175, message 5 of 17

>When I tried to use a dbm database from Sun386i and Sun-3 (both running
>SunOS 4.0.1), I encountered a strange effect.  If the dbm file is created
>on a Sun386i, I cannot read it from the Sun-3 (and vice versa) !

The format of dbm databases is (a) undocumented, and (b) machine-specific.
Short of reimplementing dbm, there is no general cure that I know of.  It
isn't necessarily just a byte-ordering problem; there is also the question
of whether dbm's hash function is machine-dependent.

>... (I need this to run the news software in a heterogeneous network.)

I am exploring the possibility of fixing Jon Zeeff's "dbz", which is a
partial dbm lookalike sufficient for news, to be byte-order-independent.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu