mdbDir5

Overview

The m17n library loads a list of definitions of data of the m17n database from files of name 'mdb.dir' in each database directory at initialization time. The plist format of this file is as follows:

MDB-DIR ::= DEFINITION *
DEFINITION ::= '(' TAG0 [ TAG1 [ TAG2 [ TAG3 ] ] ] FILE [ VERSION ]')'
TAGn ::= SYMBOL
FILE ::= MTEXT
VERSION ::= MTEXT

If TAG0 is neither `charset' nor `char-table', and TAGn (n > 0) is a symbol `*', FILE can contain a wildcard charater, and all files matching FILE accoding to the rules used by the shell are the target of database files. In that case, each file must contain SELF-DEFINITION which is a plist element providing the actual TAGn values by the form:

SELF-DEFINITION ::= '(' TAG0 TAG1 TAG2 TAG3 [ VERSION ] ')'

For instance, if a database directory contains these files:

zh-py.mim:
(input-method zh py)
ko-han2.mim:
(input-method ko han2)

these lines in 'mdb.dir':

(input-method zh py "zh-py.mim")
(input-method ko han2 "ko-han2.mim")

can be shortened to this single line:

(input-method * "*.mim")

VERSION is a required version number of the m17n library. The format is 'XX.YY.ZZ' where XX is a major version number, YY is a minor version number, and ZZ is a patch level.