README

hamsterdb Embedded Storage 1.1.4                   Tue Apr 13 20:21:13 CEST 2010
(C) Christoph Rupp, chris@crupp.de; http://www.hamsterdb.com

This is the README file of hamsterdb Embedded Storage.

Contents:

1. About

hamsterdb Embedded Storage is a database engine written in ANSI C. It supports 
a B+Tree index structure, uses memory mapped I/O (if available), supports 
fast Cursors and variable length keys and can create In-Memory Databases.

This release fixes a few bugs and has minor performance improvements.

2. Changes

New Features
* none

Bugfixes
* Bugfix - win32 only: with very big databases and unlimited cache, resources
    were exceeded and mmap failed. in this case we'll now fall back to 
    read/write (thanks, Simon)
o Bugfix - it was allowed to create temp. Transactions while a non-temp.
	Transaction was still active

Other Changes
* Optimization - if HAM_DAM_SEQUENTIAL_INSERT is set then btree nodes will
    not be split in the middle, but at the end of the node. hamsterdb will
    also auto-recognize if an insert is sequential (at the "right end" of 
    the index). This leads to MUCH smaller files and therefore higher
    performance (thanks, Simon)
* The documentation in the header file was improved and some constants
    were renamed/deprecated

To see a list of all changes, look in the file ChangeLog.

3. Roadmap

- continue internal code cleanups
- access remote databases over the network

4. Features

- Very fast sorted B+Tree with variable length keys
- Can run as an in-memory database
- Supports multiple databases in one file
- Supports record number databases ("auto-increment")
- Supports duplicate keys (with sorting)
- Support for logging and recovery
- Support for Transactions (only one Transaction at a time, requires logging)
- Support for partial reading/writing of records
- Very fast database cursors 
- Configurable page size, cache size and index key size
- Portable ANSI-C implementation
- Runs on Linux, Unices, Microsoft Windows, Windows CE and on many
    architectures (also embedded and SPARC)
- Endian-independent file format
- Uses memory mapped I/O for fast disk access (but falls back to read/write if
    mmap is not available)
- Uses 64bit file pointers and supports huge files (>2 GB)
- Easy to use and well-documented
- Supports rudimentary live-reorganization by automatically
    merging freelist entries
- Open source and released under the GPL 2.0 or later
- Supports AES encryption and zlib compression
- Wrappers for C++, Python, Java and .NET

5. Known Issues/Bugs

None.

6. Compiling 

6.1 Linux and Cygwin/Win32

To compile hamsterdb Embedded Storage, run ./configure, make, make install.

Run `./configure --help' for more options (i.e. static/dynamic library, 
build with debugging symbols etc).

6.2 Microsoft Visual Studio 8

A Solution file is provided for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005:
'win32/hamsterdb.sln'. It compiles a static and a dynamic library. 
Please read the README.TXT file in the win32 directory.
All libraries can be downloaded precompiled from the hamsterdb webpage.

To download Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition for free, go to
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/default.aspx.

7. Testing and Example Code

Make automatically compiles several example programs in the directory
'samples'. To see hamsterdb Embedded Storage in action, just run 'samples/db1' 
or any other sample. (or 'win32/out/samples/db1/db1.exe' on Windows platforms).

8. API Documentation

The header files in 'include/ham' have extensive comments. Also, a doxygen
script is available; run 'make doc' to start doxygen. The generated
documentation is also available on the hamsterdb web page.

9. Other Ways to Compile hamsterdb Embedded Storage

If you want to compile hamsterdb without using the provided ./configure
environment, you have to set some preprocessor macros:

DEBUG                   enable debugging output and diagnostic checks (slow!)
HAM_LITTLE_ENDIAN       compile for little endian machines (i.e. x86)
HAM_BIG_ENDIAN          compile for big endian machines (most other
                            architectures)
HAM_32BIT               compile for 32bit (alias: WIN32)
HAM_64BIT               compile for 64bit (alias: WIN64, also needs WIN32)
HAM_ENABLE_INTERNAL     enable internal functions (declared in
                            include/ham/hamsterdb_int.h)
HAM_DISABLE_COMPRESSION build without support for zlib compression
HAM_DISABLE_ENCRYPTION  build without support for AES encryption

Also, if you compile for windows, you have to compile the file 'src/os_win32.c',
and ignore the file 'src/os_posix.c'. Vice versa on non-Windows platforms.

10. Porting hamsterdb Embedded Storage

Porting hamsterdb Embedded Storage shouldn't be too difficult. All operating 
system dependend functions are declared in 'src/os.h' and defined 
in 'src/os_win32.c' or 'src/os_posix.c'. 
Other compiler- and OS-specific macros are in 'include/ham/types.h'. 
Most likely, these are the only files which have to be touched. Also see item 
9) for important macros. 

11. Licensing

hamsterdb Embedded Storage can be licensed on a per-developer basis for 
closed source applications. For more details, see 
http://hamsterdb.com/licensing and http://hamsterdb.com/store.

hamsterdb Embedded Storage is released under GPL2 or later. There are several 
exceptions for other open source licenses (see 
http://hamsterdb.com/licensing/exceptions for legal information and a license 
list).

12. Contact

Author of hamsterdb Embedded Storage is 
    Christoph Rupp
    Paul-Preuss-Str. 63
    80995 Muenchen/Germany
    email: chris@crupp.de
    web: http://www.hamsterdb.com

13. Other Copyrights

The AES library in '3rdparty/aes' is (C) Karl Malbrain, malbrain@yahoo.com
(http://www.geocities.com/malbrain). It has the following license:

    This work, including the source code, documentation
    and related data, is placed into the public domain.

    The orginal author is Karl Malbrain.

    THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS-IS WITHOUT WARRANTY
    OF ANY KIND, NOT EVEN THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF
    MERCHANTABILITY. THE AUTHOR OF THIS SOFTWARE,
    ASSUMES _NO_ RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY CONSEQUENCE
    RESULTING FROM THE USE, MODIFICATION, OR
    REDISTRIBUTION OF THIS SOFTWARE.

The zlib library in '3rdparty/zlib' is (C) Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler. 
It has the following license:

    This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
    warranty.  In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
    arising from the use of this software.

    Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
    including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
    freely, subject to the following restrictions:

    1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
       claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
       in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
       appreciated but is not required.
    2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
       misrepresented as being the original software.
    3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

    Jean-loup Gailly        Mark Adler
    jloup@gzip.org          madler@alumni.caltech.edu