Berkeley DB Reference Guide: Dumping and Reloading

Loading text into databases

The db_load utility can be used to load random text into databases.

For example, the following command loads the standard UNIX /etc/passwd file into a database, with the login name as the key item and the entire password entry as the data item:

awk -F: '{print $1; print $0}' < /etc/passwd |
    sed 's/\\/\\\\/g' | db_load -T -t hash passwd.db

Note that backslash characters naturally occurring in the text are escaped to avoid interpretation as escape characters by db_load.