FAQ-1071 What tools are available for editing/configuring the Communications Database (CommDb)?


FAQ-1071 What tools are available for editing/configuring the Communications Database (CommDb)?

» Symbian OS » Developer Knowledgebase » FAQ-1071

Classification:	C++	Category:	Networking
Created:	06/11/2004	Modified:	12/15/2004
Number:	FAQ-1071
Platform:	Symbian OS v6.1, Symbian OS v7.0, Symbian OS v7.0s, Symbian OS v8.0, Symbian OS v8.0a, Symbian OS v8.0b

Question:
What are CED, CEDDUMP, T_CREATEDB.EXE, T_EDITDB.EXE, Symbian CommDb Editor?
How do I use these tools to configure the CommDb?

Answer:
The Symbian OS Communications Database (also referred to as CommDb) stores most system-wide communications settings for Telephony, Networking, and other communications services. Internally, from Symbian OS v7.0 the database is a file named Cdbv3.dat, and is located at:

c\system\data\
Compatibilty between versions is not gauranteed. A default copy of the file always exist in the ROM directory and gets copied into the above directory when the database is first accessed.

There is a public API for reading and manipulating the CommDb directly in C++ code, See (for Symbian OS v7.0s)
» Developer Library » Symbian OS Guide » C++ API guide » Comms Infrastructure » CommDb Overview
» Developer Library » API Reference » C++ API reference » CommDb

During the evolution of Symbian OS, a number of tools have been developed for editing/configuring the CommDb. An overview of each of the tools is provided below:

CEDDUMP
(Supported from Symbian OS v7.0)
This tool dumps the entire contents of the CommDb into a text file, which can then be modified and imported by the CED tool.

To run the tool for the currently selected Symian OS device, on the command line enter:
ceddump
The file will be output to:
\epoc32\[wins|winscw]\c\cedout.cfg

Notes:

You can run an explicit version of CEDDUMP by running the tool from Windows Explorer (...epoc32\release\wins\udeb\ceddump.exe)
The output file can be modified/edited in a "safe" way using the Symbian CommDb editor (described below). You can also manually edit it using any text editor.

CED
(Supported from Symbian OS v7.0)
This tool imports the CommDb configuration file in the format that is exported by CEDDUMP (and the Symbian CommDb Editor), and creates a new CommDb file (see location above) and a log file for checking errors.

To run the tool for the currently selected Symian OS device, on the command line enter:
ced -i
where is the pathname of the configuration file. If no path is specified, i.e. you run ced with no options or from Windows Explorer (\epoc32\release\wins\udeb\ced.exe) then the target file:
\epoc32\wins\c\ced.cfg
is used.

The log file (ced.log) is created in the root of the emulated C drive.

Symbian CommDb Editor
(Supported from Symbian OS v7.0)

The Symbian CommDb Editor is a CommDb-structure-aware editor. A user can create or modify CommDB table entries with ease without worrying about corrupting a config file.The user can then generate a CommDB settings file, either in the CFG format or the new XML format. This file can be used as input to the CED command as described above, in order to generate a CommDb file.

This tool should be used in preference to Notepad or some other non-CommDb aware editor.

T_CREATEDB (Deprecated)
(Available in Symbian OS 6.0, 6.1, 7.0 and deprecated in Symbian OS v7.0 in favour of CED/CEDDUMP)

This tool is a "wizard" for setting up a CommDb with a number of common desirable Internet Access Points (IAPs). Comms-infrastructure dropped support for this tool in Symbian OS v7.0, following the introduction of CED and CEDUMP.

You can run the tool from Windows Explorer at:
\epoc32\release\wins\udeb\t_createdb.exe

The setup options are self explanatory.

T_EDITDB
(Available from Symbian OS v6.0)

This tool is a CommDb editor implemented as a Symbian OS Console application.

You can run the tool from Windows Explorer at:
\epoc32\release\wins\udeb\t_editdb.exe