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A bitmapped record number database interface for various database engines
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.. contents::


Description
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A record number database is seen as a set of fixed size segments, and an existence bitmap is associated with each segment which contains any records.  The idea is from Model 204 (Rocket Software).

Where an index value refers to many records in a segment these references are encoded as a bitmap or a list of record numbers, in a single <index value> : <bitmap or list> record, rather than as many <index value> : <record number> records.  When 'many' is small a list is favoured to save the space needed for large numbers of unset bits.

The interfaces provided by the apsw, bitbase, bsddb, bsddb3, dptdb, and sqlite3, Python modules are supported.


Installation Instructions
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Install the package by typing

   python setup.py install

at the command prompt with setup.py in the current directory.

You may need to give the path and version of Python depending on your system's configuration:

   <path to python>/python<version> setup.py install

   For example

      C:\\Python36\\python setup.py install

         on Microsoft Windows or

      python3.6 setup.py install

         on Unix-like systems.

Use `Python`_ 3.6 or later.


.. _`Python`: https://python.org
