The db and dbm Tcl applications are command line interfaces to the Bbuuzzb database engine or server. Note that the dbm client/server application has not yet been written. Each database command has a command code defined in the definition file dbcomm.tcl.

The db application is designed for single user use. The Bbuuzzb database engine is sourceed into this program. 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 TCP sockets as the IPC method.

dbm requires a Bbuuzzb database server running. The dbm application communicates with the Bbuuzzb database server, the socloc server and possibly 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 (if used for logging) 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.

All configuration files must be located in the same directory as the main source 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.