xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/db/man/hash.3 (revision dd41de95a84d979615a2ef11df6850622bf6184e)
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28.\"	@(#)hash.3	8.6 (Berkeley) 8/18/94
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd August 18, 1994
32.Dt HASH 3
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm hash
36.Nd "hash 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 an extensible, dynamic hashing scheme.
56.Pp
57The access method specific data structure provided to
58.Fn dbopen
59is defined in the
60.In db.h
61include file as follows:
62.Bd -literal
63typedef struct {
64	u_int bsize;
65	u_int ffactor;
66	u_int nelem;
67	u_int cachesize;
68	uint32_t (*hash)(const void *, size_t);
69	int lorder;
70} HASHINFO;
71.Ed
72.Pp
73The elements of this structure are as follows:
74.Bl -tag -width indent
75.It Va bsize
76The
77.Va bsize
78element
79defines the
80.Nm
81table bucket size, and is, by default, 4096 bytes.
82It may be preferable to increase the page size for disk-resident tables
83and tables with large data items.
84.It Va ffactor
85The
86.Va ffactor
87element
88indicates a desired density within the
89.Nm
90table.
91It is an approximation of the number of keys allowed to accumulate in any
92one bucket, determining when the
93.Nm
94table grows or shrinks.
95The default value is 8.
96.It Va nelem
97The
98.Va nelem
99element
100is an estimate of the final size of the
101.Nm
102table.
103If not set or set too low,
104.Nm
105tables will expand gracefully as keys
106are entered, although a slight performance degradation may be noticed.
107The default value is 1.
108.It Va cachesize
109A suggested maximum size, in bytes, of the memory cache.
110This value is
111.Em only
112advisory, and the access method will allocate more memory rather
113than fail.
114.It Va hash
115The
116.Va hash
117element
118is a user defined
119.Nm
120function.
121Since no
122.Nm
123function performs equally well on all possible data, the
124user may find that the built-in
125.Nm
126function does poorly on a particular
127data set.
128User specified
129.Nm
130functions must take two arguments (a pointer to a byte
131string and a length) and return a 32-bit quantity to be used as the
132.Nm
133value.
134.It Va lorder
135The byte order for integers in the stored database metadata.
136The number should represent the order as an integer; for example,
137big endian order would be the number 4,321.
138If
139.Va lorder
140is 0 (no order is specified) the current host order is used.
141If the file already exists, the specified value is ignored and the
142value specified when the tree was created is used.
143.El
144.Pp
145If the file already exists (and the
146.Dv O_TRUNC
147flag is not specified), the
148values specified for the
149.Va bsize , ffactor , lorder
150and
151.Va nelem
152arguments
153are
154ignored and the values specified when the tree was created are used.
155.Pp
156If a
157.Nm
158function is specified,
159.Fn hash_open
160will attempt to determine if the
161.Nm
162function specified is the same as
163the one with which the database was created, and will fail if it is not.
164.Pp
165Backward compatible interfaces to the older
166.Em dbm
167and
168.Em ndbm
169routines are provided, however these interfaces are not compatible with
170previous file formats.
171.Sh ERRORS
172The
173.Nm
174access method routines may fail and set
175.Va errno
176for any of the errors specified for the library routine
177.Xr dbopen 3 .
178.Sh SEE ALSO
179.Xr btree 3 ,
180.Xr dbopen 3 ,
181.Xr mpool 3 ,
182.Xr recno 3
183.Rs
184.%T "Dynamic Hash Tables"
185.%A Per-Ake Larson
186.%R "Communications of the ACM"
187.%D April 1988
188.Re
189.Rs
190.%T "A New Hash Package for UNIX"
191.%A Margo Seltzer
192.%R "USENIX Proceedings"
193.%D Winter 1991
194.Re
195.Sh BUGS
196Only big and little endian byte order is supported.
197