dbm file in NIS

UNIX Solaris
1

Can anyone tell what is the exact use of dbm file in NIS? would be much appreciable if explain in good way.

2

NIS stores its information in DBM files. These are key-value databases. (Every key is unique and has one value). NIS does this so that the information is retained across process restarts. There are some programs to read from a DBM file. Usually, one can use perl to do more interesting things to the data:

#!/usr/bin/perl
dbmopen(%NISDAT,$ARGV[0],0444) || die "Cannot open $ARGV[0] : $!";
while (($key,$val) = each %NISDAT) {
   print $key, '=', $val,"\n";
}
dbmclose(%NISDAT);
3

It's a wonderful reply. I really appreciate this. Thanks a ton.