GDBM file import and export

Question

I am migrating a system from the old server (Slackware) to the new one (Redhat). The system includes some .gdbm files. I find out that on my new server, when running

WEB_SERVICES = file.gdbm
tie( %webservices, 'GDBM_File', $WEB_SERVICES, O_RDONLY, 0 )

the %webservices turns out to be empty. But this was working fine on my old server.

So my question is, are .gdbm files able to be simply transferred (using scp command) from one server to another (different operating system and different version of gdbm)?

Also I read the documents http://www.gnu.org.ua/software/gdbm/manual/gdbm.html#SEC12, which says .gdbm files need to be converted into flat format before sending over the network. But still I'm not sure how to do it.

Please help, thanks in advance!

Answer 1

On the old system, GDBM-tie to the hash, dump the hash. Move the dump to the new system. Read the dump into a hash, tie to GDBM to write it.

For dumping, use a platform independent serialisation format (Sereal is best), or if the dump needs to be human readable, Data::Dumper or similar for writing and Data::Undump for reading.