Chapter 2. Creating a New Berkeley DB Binary

Table of Contents

Creating a Base Build of Berkeley DB
Determining the Scope of the Modifications
Do Changes Need to be Made to the Operating System Functionality?
Are Some Standard Functions Missing on the Target Platform?
How Will the Port Handle Shared Memory?
What Type of Mutexes Will the Port Use?
Do Any Other Changes Need to be Made?
Building on the Target Platform
Source Code Layout

Creating a new Berkeley DB executable on the target platform, involves:

  1. Creating a Base Build of Berkeley DB

  2. Determining the Scope of the Modifications

  3. Building on the Target Platform

Creating a Base Build of Berkeley DB

The simplest way to begin a port is to attempt to configure and build Berkeley DB on a UNIX or UNIX-like system. This gives you a list of the files that you needed to build Berkeley DB as well as the configuration files you can use as a starting point for building on your target port.

To create a base build of Berkeley DB, following the instructions in the Berkeley DB Programmer's Reference Guide:

  1. Download a Berkeley DB distribution from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/berkeleydb/downloads/index.html.

  2. Build Berkeley DB.

Berkeley DB uses the GNU autoconf tools for configuration on almost all of the platforms it supports. Specifically, the include file db_config.h configures the Berkeley DB build. The simplest way to begin a port is to configure and build Berkeley DB on a UNIX or UNIX-like system, and then take the Makefile and db_config.h file created by that configuration, and modify it by hand to reflect the needs of the new architecture. Unless you are already familiar with the GNU autoconf toolset, we do not recommend you take the time to integrate your changes back into the Berkeley DB autoconfiguration framework. Instead, send us context diffs of your changes and any new source files you created, and we can integrate the changes into our source tree.