sendmail, 4th Edition

The editmap Program

The editmap program is supplied in source form with V8.12 and above sendmail. It can also be supplied in precompiled form by your vendor.^[163] It is used to edit or view individual items in database files and is run from the command line like this:

% editmap -q switches dbtype dbfile key
% editmap -x switches dbtype dbfile key
% editmap -u switches dbtype dbfile key new_value

We’ll discuss the switches in the next section. The dbtype can be dbm (which uses the ndbm(3) library routines), hash, or btree (both of which use the db(3) library routines). The dbfile is the location and name (full path or relative name) for the database file that will be edited. For dbm files, the .pag and .dir suffixes are added automatically. For db files, the .db suffix will be added automatically if it is not already included in the name.

The key is the name of the item in the database that you wish to view or edit. If you are just viewing an item’s value, include the -q command-line flag and omit the new_value. If you need to delete an item and its value, include the -x command-line flag and omit the new_value. If you are updating an item’s value, or inserting a new value, include the -u command-line switch and the new_value. The new_value, when present, should be quoted to prevent internal characters and spaces from being interpreted by the shell. For example:

'$0@'      ← the new_value should be quoted

In addition, some special characters, such as !, need to be prefixed with a backslash ...