xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/db/man/hash.3 (revision 2008043f386721d58158e37e0d7e50df8095942d)
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28.\"	@(#)hash.3	8.6 (Berkeley) 8/18/94
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30.Dd August 18, 1994
31.Dt HASH 3
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm hash
35.Nd "hash database access method"
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.In sys/types.h
38.In db.h
39.Sh DESCRIPTION
40The routine
41.Fn dbopen
42is the library interface to database files.
43One of the supported file formats is
44.Nm
45files.
46The general description of the database access methods is in
47.Xr dbopen 3 ,
48this manual page describes only the
49.Nm
50specific information.
51.Pp
52The
53.Nm
54data structure is an extensible, dynamic hashing scheme.
55.Pp
56The access method specific data structure provided to
57.Fn dbopen
58is defined in the
59.In db.h
60include file as follows:
61.Bd -literal
62typedef struct {
63	u_int bsize;
64	u_int ffactor;
65	u_int nelem;
66	u_int cachesize;
67	uint32_t (*hash)(const void *, size_t);
68	int lorder;
69} HASHINFO;
70.Ed
71.Pp
72The elements of this structure are as follows:
73.Bl -tag -width indent
74.It Va bsize
75The
76.Va bsize
77element
78defines the
79.Nm
80table bucket size, and is, by default, 4096 bytes.
81It may be preferable to increase the page size for disk-resident tables
82and tables with large data items.
83.It Va ffactor
84The
85.Va ffactor
86element
87indicates a desired density within the
88.Nm
89table.
90It is an approximation of the number of keys allowed to accumulate in any
91one bucket, determining when the
92.Nm
93table grows or shrinks.
94The default value is 8.
95.It Va nelem
96The
97.Va nelem
98element
99is an estimate of the final size of the
100.Nm
101table.
102If not set or set too low,
103.Nm
104tables will expand gracefully as keys
105are entered, although a slight performance degradation may be noticed.
106The default value is 1.
107.It Va cachesize
108A suggested maximum size, in bytes, of the memory cache.
109This value is
110.Em only
111advisory, and the access method will allocate more memory rather
112than fail.
113.It Va hash
114The
115.Va hash
116element
117is a user defined
118.Nm
119function.
120Since no
121.Nm
122function performs equally well on all possible data, the
123user may find that the built-in
124.Nm
125function does poorly on a particular
126data set.
127User specified
128.Nm
129functions must take two arguments (a pointer to a byte
130string and a length) and return a 32-bit quantity to be used as the
131.Nm
132value.
133.It Va lorder
134The byte order for integers in the stored database metadata.
135The number should represent the order as an integer; for example,
136big endian order would be the number 4,321.
137If
138.Va lorder
139is 0 (no order is specified) the current host order is used.
140If the file already exists, the specified value is ignored and the
141value specified when the tree was created is used.
142.El
143.Pp
144If the file already exists (and the
145.Dv O_TRUNC
146flag is not specified), the
147values specified for the
148.Va bsize , ffactor , lorder
149and
150.Va nelem
151arguments
152are
153ignored and the values specified when the tree was created are used.
154.Pp
155If a
156.Nm
157function is specified,
158.Fn hash_open
159will attempt to determine if the
160.Nm
161function specified is the same as
162the one with which the database was created, and will fail if it is not.
163.Pp
164Backward compatible interfaces to the older
165.Em dbm
166and
167.Em ndbm
168routines are provided, however these interfaces are not compatible with
169previous file formats.
170.Sh ERRORS
171The
172.Nm
173access method routines may fail and set
174.Va errno
175for any of the errors specified for the library routine
176.Xr dbopen 3 .
177.Sh SEE ALSO
178.Xr btree 3 ,
179.Xr dbopen 3 ,
180.Xr mpool 3 ,
181.Xr recno 3
182.Rs
183.%T "Dynamic Hash Tables"
184.%A Per-Ake Larson
185.%R "Communications of the ACM"
186.%D April 1988
187.Re
188.Rs
189.%T "A New Hash Package for UNIX"
190.%A Margo Seltzer
191.%R "USENIX Proceedings"
192.%D Winter 1991
193.Re
194.Sh BUGS
195Only big and little endian byte order is supported.
196