ODBM_File - Tied access to odbm files
use Fcntl; # For O_RDWR, O_CREAT, etc. use ODBM_File; # Now read and change the hash $h{newkey} = newvalue; print $h{oldkey}; ... untie %h;
ODBM_File
establishes a connection between a Perl hash variable and a file in ODBM_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 ODBM_File
with the Perl built-in tie
function to establish the connection between the variable and the file. The arguments to tie
should be:
"ODBM_File"
. (Ths tells Perl to use the ODBM_File
package to perform the functions of the hash.)O_RDONLY
Read-only access to the data in the file.
O_WRONLY
Write-only access to the data in the file.
O_RDWR
Both read and write access.
If you want to create the file if it does not exist, add O_CREAT
to any of these, as in the example. If you omit O_CREAT
and the file does not already exist, the tie
call will fail.
On failure, the tie
call returns an undefined value and probably sets $!
to contain the reason the file could not be tied.
odbm store returned -1, errno 22, key "..." at ...
This warning is emitted 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.
There are a number of limits on the size of the data that you can store in the ODBM file. The most important is that the length of a key, plus the length of its associated value, may not exceed 1008 bytes.