void setdb(char *string)
This function may be used to set or change the database path (see section The Database Path) within a running program. The argument points to a
null-terminated string that specifies the desired database path (but see
the next paragraph for an exception). The
string contains directory names separated by colons (`:') under
UNIX or by semicolons (`;') under MS-DOS. An empty component,
indicated by an initial or terminal separator, or by two consecutive
separators, will be understood to specify the current directory. If the
string is empty or NULL, the database path is limited to the
current directory.
If string begins with `@', the remaining characters of
string are taken as the name of a file from which the DB path is
to be read. This file may contain either the DB path, as described in
the previous paragraph, or another indirect DB path specification.
Indirect DB path specifications may be nested no more than ten levels
deep (an arbitrary limit imposed to avoid infinite recursion).
Evaluation of indirect DB paths is deferred until getdb is
invoked, either explicitly or by the DB library while attempting to open
an input file (e.g., using annopen or isigopen). (The
features described in this paragraph were first introduced in DB library
version 8.0.)
The setdb function does not copy the string itself, which must
therefore be kept valid by the caller, nor does it modify the environment
variable DB, which will be inherited by any processes spawned
from the caller. For portability, as well as efficiency, it is better
to use setdb than to manipulate DB directly (via
putenv, for example); furthermore, doing the latter is
ineffective (within the current process) once the first DB file has been
opened.
See section getdb,
for an example of the use of setdb.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.