dbm-firstkey

Arguments: ndbm &key return external-format

dbm-firstkey starts a database traversal process and returns the first key found by that process. ndbm should be a database returned by dbm-open. This generic function is used in combination with dbm-nextkey to traverse a database.

Keys are not stored in any interesting order. If return is supplied (the value can be :string or :usb8), it determines the return data type, otherwise the default as determined by dbm-open is used. If the return type is :string, then external-format is used to convert the data to a string. If external-format is not supplied, then again the default as determined by dbm-open is used.

Note: If you call dbm-store or dbm-delete while traversing a database using dbm-firstkey/dbm-nextkey, you should restart the traversal by calling dbm-firstkey again.

See ndbm.htm for information on the NDBM facility.

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This page was not revised from the 8.1 page.
Created 2010.1.21.