xref: /openbsd/lib/libc/db/man/hash.3 (revision 3bef86f7)
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33.\"	@(#)hash.3	8.6 (Berkeley) 8/18/94
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35.Dd $Mdocdate: March 31 2022 $
36.Dt HASH 3
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm hash
40.Nd hash database access method
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In sys/types.h
43.In db.h
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The
46.Fn dbopen
47routine is the library interface to database files.
48One of the supported file formats is hash files.
49The general description of the database access methods is in
50.Xr dbopen 3 .
51This manual page describes only the hash specific information.
52.Pp
53The hash data structure is an extensible, dynamic hashing scheme.
54.Pp
55The access method specific data structure provided to
56.Fn dbopen
57is defined in the
58.In db.h
59include file as follows:
60.Bd -literal -offset indent
61typedef struct {
62	unsigned int bsize;
63	unsigned int ffactor;
64	unsigned int nelem;
65	unsigned int cachesize;
66	u_int32_t (*hash)(const void *, size_t);
67	int lorder;
68} HASHINFO;
69.Ed
70.Pp
71The elements of this structure are as follows:
72.Bl -tag -width XXXXXX -offset indent
73.It Fa bsize
74.Fa bsize
75defines the hash table bucket size, and is, by default,
76the block size of the underlying filesystem.
77It may be preferable to increase the page size for disk-resident tables
78and tables with large data items.
79.It Fa ffactor
80.Fa ffactor
81indicates a desired density within the hash table.
82It is an approximation of the number of keys allowed to accumulate in any
83one bucket, determining when the hash table grows or shrinks.
84The default value is the same as
85.Fa bsize .
86.It Fa nelem
87.Fa nelem
88is an estimate of the final size of the hash table.
89If not set or set too low, hash tables will expand gracefully as keys
90are entered, although a slight performance degradation may be noticed.
91The default value is 1.
92.It Fa cachesize
93A suggested maximum size, in bytes, of the memory cache.
94This value is
95.Em only
96advisory, and the access method will allocate more memory rather
97than fail.
98.It Fa hash
99.Fa hash
100is a user defined hash function.
101Since no hash function performs equally well on all possible data, the
102user may find that the built-in hash function does poorly on a particular
103data set.
104User specified hash functions must take two arguments (a pointer to a byte
105string and a length) and return a 32-bit quantity to be used as the hash
106value.
107.It Fa lorder
108The byte order for integers in the stored database metadata.
109The number should represent the order as an integer; for example,
110big endian order would be the number 4,321.
111If
112.Fa lorder
113is 0 (no order is specified), the current host order is used.
114If the file already exists, the specified value is ignored and the
115value specified when the tree was created is used.
116.El
117.Pp
118If the file already exists (and the
119.Dv O_TRUNC
120flag is not specified), the
121values specified for the parameters
122.Fa bsize , ffactor , lorder
123and
124.Fa nelem
125are ignored and the values specified when the tree was created are used.
126.Pp
127If a hash function is specified,
128.Fn hash_open
129will attempt to determine if the hash function specified is the same as
130the one with which the database was created, and will fail if it is not.
131.Pp
132Backward compatible interfaces to the routines described in
133.Xr ndbm 3
134are provided, although these interfaces are not compatible with
135previous file formats.
136.Sh ERRORS
137The
138.Nm
139access method routines may fail and set
140.Va errno
141for any of the errors specified for the library routine
142.Xr dbopen 3 .
143.Sh SEE ALSO
144.Xr btree 3 ,
145.Xr dbopen 3 ,
146.Xr recno 3
147.Rs
148.%T "Dynamic Hash Tables"
149.%A Per-Ake Larson
150.%J Communications of the ACM
151.%D April 1988
152.Re
153.Rs
154.%T "A New Hash Package for UNIX"
155.%A Margo Seltzer
156.%J USENIX Proceedings
157.%D Winter 1991
158.Re
159.Sh BUGS
160Only big and little endian byte order is supported.
161