This is the README file for EDB, a database program for GNU Emacs.
The bulk of the EDB documentation is in the texinfo file database.texi.
EDB was written by Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu>.
EDB is in beta test, but is reasonably stable.


Files in EDB
============

(In lexographic order)

README		This file:  manifest and installation instructions

README-example	README file for the separate EDB examples distribution

backtracef.el	Fixes backtrace to work in the presence of circular data.

database.el	The main file; primarily loads other files

database.texi	texinfo documentation

db-convert.el	Changing database structure:  add and remove fields, etc.

db-file-io.el	Saving databases to disk, loading databases from disk

db-format.el	Displaying and editing a single database record

db-interfa.el	Keystroke bindings, wrapper functions

db-lucid.el	Support for Lucid GNU Emacs menus, fontification, etc.

db-rdb.el	Support for RDB databases

db-rep.el	Data abstractions and operations upon them

db-search.el	Searching and matching records

db-sort.el	Sorting records

db-summary.el	Summary buffer with limited info about every database record

db-tagged.el	Support for tagged database files

db-time.el	Definitions of time and date field types

db-two-dbs.el	Operations on two databases:  merging, comparing, etc.

db-types.el	Definitions of useful field types

util-clmde.el	Some Common Lisp functions missing from Elisp

util-mde.el	Useful non-EDB specific utility functions

See below for how to get pre-processed copies of the documentation.


Installation
============

See the "Installation" section of database.texi for more complete and
definitive instructions.

In short, place the .el files in your Emacs load path (probably in a
directory of their own).  You can add a directory to your Emacs lisp load
path by putting something similar to the following in your .emacs file:

	(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "~/emacs/edb") load-path))

In order to autoload EDB, put the following in your .emacs file:

	(autoload 'db-find-file "database" "EDB database package" t)

Use M-x db-find-file to start up EDB on a particular database file.

It is recommended that, lest it run very slowly, you byte-compile the code;
use function byte-compile-database to do so.

The texinfo documentation uses version 2 of texinfo, which is available
from prep.ai.mit.edu.  Earlier versions of texinfo will not properly format
the manual, either for TeX or for info.  If you don't have a sufficiently
up-to-date version of texinfo, you can simply get the files database.dvi
(or database.ps) and database.info and database.info-[123456] (six files)
from theory.lcs.mit.edu:/pub/emacs/edb/; these are versions of the
documentation ready for printing and for use in info, respectively.

Sample databases can be found in the file examples.tar.Z or the directory
examples, both in theory.lcs.mit.edu:/pub/emacs/edb/.
