4.3 The dbconfig file

The dbconfig configuration file controls the configuration of a GNATS database. Each database has its own individual copy of this file, which is located in the gnats-adm subdirectory of the database.

The file consists of standard plain text. Whitespace is completely optional and is ignored. Sets of braces ‘@’ are used to delimit the different sections, and all non-keyword values must be surrounded with double quotes. The values in dbconfig can be changed at any time; the new values take effect for all subsequent iterations of GNATS tools.

The dbconfig file contains 6 major sections, which must appear in the following order:

• Overall database configuration
• Individual field configuration
• Named query definitions
• Audit-trail and outgoing email formats
• Index file description
• Initial Problem Report input fields

The different sections are described below. While reading the following sections, it will be useful to refer to the sample dbconfig file which is installed when a new database is initialized with the mkdb tool. In fact, the sample file provides a configuration that should be usable for a great range of sites, since it reproduces the behaviour of the older, less customizable 3.x versions of GNATS.