Install tkrzw with Homebrew, apt, dnf, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• tkrzw_build_util
• tkrzw_dbm_perf
• tkrzw_dbm_tran
• tkrzw_dbm_util
• tkrzw_file_perf
• tkrzw_langc_check
• tkrzw_str_perf
• tkrzw_ulog_util

Project history

The official DBMx documentation defines DBM as persistent associative-array storage and presents Tkrzw as a C++ library implementing DBM with multiple algorithms. Its database classes include hash, tree, skip-list, in-memory, cache, standard-library-backed, polymorphic, sharded, asynchronous, and secondary-index implementations.

Tkrzw is explicitly documented as the successor to Kyoto Cabinet, Tokyo Cabinet, and QDBM, but with changed APIs and data formats rather than compatibility with those predecessors. That makes it part of a long-running family of compact embedded key-value stores associated with Hirabayashi's earlier database work.

The repository README points to the DBMx documentation as the main document and documents Unix-like and Windows build paths. The official site emphasizes portability across Unix-like systems and Windows, dependency injection for file implementations, and language interfaces for C, Java, Python, Ruby, and Go.

Adoption history

Tkrzw's adoption is strongest among developers who need an embedded ordered or hash key-value store with predictable local-file behavior rather than a network database. Its package-manager footprint in the supplied facts includes Homebrew, Debian/Ubuntu libtkrzw-dev, Fedora/dnf, and Nix.

The ChangeLog shows sustained maintenance through the 1.0.x series, including interface compatibility notes for Java, Python, Ruby, and Go bindings. Releases in 2021 rapidly expanded durability, direct I/O, page cache, transaction, and update-log capabilities; later releases added search, encryption/compression, index, and C interface improvements.

How it is used

Tkrzw is used as an embedded library by C++ programs and through language bindings when an application wants persistent key-value records in local files. The official documentation describes shared APIs for opening, setting, getting, removing, iterating, processing records atomically, rebuilding, and restoring databases.

The package also ships command-line utilities such as tkrzw_dbm_util and tkrzw_dbm_perf. For package users, these utilities make it inspectable and benchmarkable from the terminal, which is important for comparing DBM engines and debugging file-based stores.

Why package nerds care

Tkrzw is significant because it continues a recognizable lineage of Japanese DBM libraries that have long appeared in Unix packaging systems. It is the modern C++17 member of a family package maintainers may remember from QDBM, Tokyo Cabinet, Kyoto Cabinet, and Kyoto Tycoon.

It is also a package-nerd kind of database: not a service to supervise, but a library plus CLI tools whose value depends on headers, pkg-config metadata, language bindings, ABI versioning, and careful release packaging.

Timeline

• 2021-05: ChangeLog shows rapid 0.9.x releases adding direct I/O, page cache, transaction, and recovery work.
• 2021-09: ChangeLog shows update-log and message-queue utilities added around the 1.0.14 release.
• 2023-03: ChangeLog lists 1.0.27 with AES encryption support in the compressor path.
• 2024-10-22: ChangeLog lists release 1.0.32 and library version 1.75.0.

Related projects

• QDBM, Tokyo Cabinet, and Kyoto Cabinet are the documented predecessors whose lineage Tkrzw succeeds without API or data-format compatibility.
• Tkrzw-RPC is the related DBMx service for sharing Tkrzw databases over gRPC.
• tkrzw-java, tkrzw-python, tkrzw-ruby, and tkrzw-go are separately packaged language interfaces named by the official documentation and ChangeLog.

Sources

• https://dbmx.net/tkrzw/ official overview, DBM explanation, supported classes, utilities, portability, language interfaces, FAQ lineage, and Tkrzw-RPC note
• https://github.com/estraier/tkrzw README for repository identity and build/install behavior
• https://github.com/estraier/tkrzw/blob/master/ChangeLog for release history and language-interface compatibility notes
• source_facts.package-manager for Homebrew, Debian/Ubuntu, dnf, and Nix packaging