The db and dbm GPL applications are command line interfaces to the Bbuuzzb database engine. Each database function has a command code defined in the header file dbcomm.h.

The db application is designed for single user use. The Bbuuzzb database engine is linked into this binary/executable. Before you can run the db application, you must set up a database engine configuration file called dbeng.cfg with a minimum of the tmp_path and log entries (the catalog entry is optional but recommended in single user mode).

The dbm application is designed for client/server environments and uses either TCP sockets or QNX message passing IPC method. Any mention of QNX in this document refers to the QNX 4.x OS.

dbm requires a Bbuuzzb database server running. The dbm application communicates with the Bbuuzzb database server, the socloc server and the system log server through TCP sockets. In order to get dbm to successfully connect to the Bbuuzzb database server, the server must already be running and registered with the socloc server and there must be at least one socloc server and at least one system log server running within the environment. A socloc startup file must also be composed to connect to a socloc server. The database configuration file is not required for the dbm application.

Only the TCP IPC version of dbm requires a socloc server and a socloc startup file. The requirement for a system log server however, is part of all versions of dbm.

All configuration files must be located in the same directory as the binary/executable program. The db and dbm applications must be executed within their current directory so the program can locate the configuration files.

The db and dbm applications present a command line to the user. Database commands are entered interactively. All current database operations are supported by the database commands.

The db application can be compiled for all stated platforms. The dbm application can be compiled on all stated platforms except DOS where there is no IPC.

Under the Linux/Unix/QNX operating systems, the db application can be compiled using the mkdb script. The dbm application can be compiled using the mkdbm script.