> Task 2: define a serialization of this structure to a disk record.

Recommendation: use the XDR routines from Sun RPC to marshall the
in-core structures to and from a packed format, rather than coding the
transform by hand.

> GNU dbm (gdbm) format.

Recommendation: dump gdbm in favor of the follow-on work to Berkeley
dbm, available from http://www.sleepycat.com.  This code has lots of
good properties, including speed, transactions, multi-user locking,
on-line hot backups, and a port to Windows.  *I have never encountered
a bug in db2 while using it correctly*.  Both sendmail and Netscape
are using this package.  The license says you can use it commercially
if you distribute the source for your application.  I expect other
licenses are possible if you ask.


Another member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) www.lpf.org
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Brian Bartholomew - bb_at_wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA