xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/db/man/btree.3 (revision f39bffc62c1395bde25d152c7f68fdf7cbaab414)
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28.\"	@(#)btree.3	8.4 (Berkeley) 8/18/94
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd August 18, 1994
32.Dt BTREE 3
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm btree
36.Nd "btree database access method"
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.In sys/types.h
39.In db.h
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The routine
42.Fn dbopen
43is the library interface to database files.
44One of the supported file formats is
45.Nm
46files.
47The general description of the database access methods is in
48.Xr dbopen 3 ,
49this manual page describes only the
50.Nm
51specific information.
52.Pp
53The
54.Nm
55data structure is a sorted, balanced tree structure storing
56associated key/data pairs.
57.Pp
58The
59.Nm
60access method specific data structure provided to
61.Fn dbopen
62is defined in the
63.In db.h
64include file as follows:
65.Bd -literal
66typedef struct {
67	u_long flags;
68	u_int cachesize;
69	int maxkeypage;
70	int minkeypage;
71	u_int psize;
72	int (*compare)(const DBT *key1, const DBT *key2);
73	size_t (*prefix)(const DBT *key1, const DBT *key2);
74	int lorder;
75} BTREEINFO;
76.Ed
77.Pp
78The elements of this structure are as follows:
79.Bl -tag -width indent
80.It Va flags
81The flag value is specified by
82.Em or Ns 'ing
83any of the following values:
84.Bl -tag -width indent
85.It Dv R_DUP
86Permit duplicate keys in the tree, i.e., permit insertion if the key to be
87inserted already exists in the tree.
88The default behavior, as described in
89.Xr dbopen 3 ,
90is to overwrite a matching key when inserting a new key or to fail if
91the
92.Dv R_NOOVERWRITE
93flag is specified.
94The
95.Dv R_DUP
96flag is overridden by the
97.Dv R_NOOVERWRITE
98flag, and if the
99.Dv R_NOOVERWRITE
100flag is specified, attempts to insert duplicate keys into
101the tree will fail.
102.Pp
103If the database contains duplicate keys, the order of retrieval of
104key/data pairs is undefined if the
105.Va get
106routine is used, however,
107.Va seq
108routine calls with the
109.Dv R_CURSOR
110flag set will always return the logical
111.Dq first
112of any group of duplicate keys.
113.El
114.It Va cachesize
115A suggested maximum size (in bytes) of the memory cache.
116This value is
117.Em only
118advisory, and the access method will allocate more memory rather than fail.
119Since every search examines the root page of the tree, caching the most
120recently used pages substantially improves access time.
121In addition, physical writes are delayed as long as possible, so a moderate
122cache can reduce the number of I/O operations significantly.
123Obviously, using a cache increases (but only increases) the likelihood of
124corruption or lost data if the system crashes while a tree is being modified.
125If
126.Va cachesize
127is 0 (no size is specified) a default cache is used.
128.It Va maxkeypage
129The maximum number of keys which will be stored on any single page.
130Not currently implemented.
131.\" The maximum number of keys which will be stored on any single page.
132.\" Because of the way the
133.\" .Nm
134.\" data structure works,
135.\" .Va maxkeypage
136.\" must always be greater than or equal to 2.
137.\" If
138.\" .Va maxkeypage
139.\" is 0 (no maximum number of keys is specified) the page fill factor is
140.\" made as large as possible (which is almost invariably what is wanted).
141.It Va minkeypage
142The minimum number of keys which will be stored on any single page.
143This value is used to determine which keys will be stored on overflow
144pages, i.e., if a key or data item is longer than the pagesize divided
145by the minkeypage value, it will be stored on overflow pages instead
146of in the page itself.
147If
148.Va minkeypage
149is 0 (no minimum number of keys is specified) a value of 2 is used.
150.It Va psize
151Page size is the size (in bytes) of the pages used for nodes in the tree.
152The minimum page size is 512 bytes and the maximum page size is 64K.
153If
154.Va psize
155is 0 (no page size is specified) a page size is chosen based on the
156underlying file system I/O block size.
157.It Va compare
158Compare is the key comparison function.
159It must return an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if the
160first key argument is considered to be respectively less than, equal to,
161or greater than the second key argument.
162The same comparison function must be used on a given tree every time it
163is opened.
164If
165.Va compare
166is
167.Dv NULL
168(no comparison function is specified), the keys are compared
169lexically, with shorter keys considered less than longer keys.
170.It Va prefix
171The
172.Va prefix
173element
174is the prefix comparison function.
175If specified, this routine must return the number of bytes of the second key
176argument which are necessary to determine that it is greater than the first
177key argument.
178If the keys are equal, the key length should be returned.
179Note, the usefulness of this routine is very data dependent, but, in some
180data sets can produce significantly reduced tree sizes and search times.
181If
182.Va prefix
183is
184.Dv NULL
185(no prefix function is specified),
186.Em and
187no comparison function is specified, a default lexical comparison routine
188is used.
189If
190.Va prefix
191is
192.Dv NULL
193and a comparison routine is specified, no prefix comparison is
194done.
195.It Va lorder
196The byte order for integers in the stored database metadata.
197The number should represent the order as an integer; for example,
198big endian order would be the number 4,321.
199If
200.Va lorder
201is 0 (no order is specified) the current host order is used.
202.El
203.Pp
204If the file already exists (and the
205.Dv O_TRUNC
206flag is not specified), the
207values specified for the
208.Va flags , lorder
209and
210.Va psize
211arguments
212are ignored
213in favor of the values used when the tree was created.
214.Pp
215Forward sequential scans of a tree are from the least key to the greatest.
216.Pp
217Space freed up by deleting key/data pairs from the tree is never reclaimed,
218although it is normally made available for reuse.
219This means that the
220.Nm
221storage structure is grow-only.
222The only solutions are to avoid excessive deletions, or to create a fresh
223tree periodically from a scan of an existing one.
224.Pp
225Searches, insertions, and deletions in a
226.Nm
227will all complete in
228O lg base N where base is the average fill factor.
229Often, inserting ordered data into
230.Nm Ns s
231results in a low fill factor.
232This implementation has been modified to make ordered insertion the best
233case, resulting in a much better than normal page fill factor.
234.Sh ERRORS
235The
236.Nm
237access method routines may fail and set
238.Va errno
239for any of the errors specified for the library routine
240.Xr dbopen 3 .
241.Sh SEE ALSO
242.Xr dbopen 3 ,
243.Xr hash 3 ,
244.Xr mpool 3 ,
245.Xr recno 3
246.Rs
247.%T "The Ubiquitous B-tree"
248.%A Douglas Comer
249.%J "ACM Comput. Surv. 11"
250.%N 2
251.%D June 1979
252.%P 121-138
253.Re
254.Rs
255.%A Bayer
256.%A Unterauer
257.%T "Prefix B-trees"
258.%J "ACM Transactions on Database Systems"
259.%N 1
260.%V Vol. 2
261.%D March 1977
262.%P 11-26
263.Re
264.Rs
265.%B "The Art of Computer Programming Vol. 3: Sorting and Searching"
266.%A D. E. Knuth
267.%D 1968
268.%P 471-480
269.Re
270.Sh BUGS
271Only big and little endian byte order is supported.
272