-x

-x

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Delete key from database

editmap command-line switch

The editmap program must be run with one of three mandatory command-line switches. This -x switch is one of those three.

The -x command-line switch tells editmap to open the database file in read/write mode, to look up the key, and, if found, to delete the key and its value from the database:

 %  editmap -x   dbtype dbfile sought-key  

If the dbfile lacks read/write permission, the following error will print and editmap will exit with an EX_IOERR (EX_IOERR) exit value.

 editmap: error opening type dbtype map dbfile: Permission denied 

If the sought-key is found, it and its value are silently deleted from the database. If the sought-key is not found, editmap prints the following error and exits with an EX_UNAVAILABLE (EX_UNAVAILABLE) exit value:

 editmap: couldn't find key sought-key in map dbfile 

If you get this error when reading aliases -style database files, consider adding the -N command-line switch.