PostgreSQL 7.4 Documentation
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# Chapter 52. BKI Backend Interface

Backend Interface (BKI) files are scripts in a special language that are input to the PostgreSQL backend running in the special "bootstrap" mode that allows it to perform database functions without a database system already existing. BKI files can therefore be used to create the database system in the first place. (And they are probably not useful for anything else.)

initdb uses a BKI file to do part of its job when creating a new database cluster. The input file used by initdb is created as part of building and installing PostgreSQL by a program named `genbki.sh` from some specially formatted C header files in the source tree. The created BKI file is called `postgres.bki` and is normally installed in the `share` subdirectory of the installation tree.

Related information may be found in the documentation for initdb.

# 52.1. BKI File Format

This section describes how the PostgreSQL backend interprets BKI files. This description will be easier to understand if the `postgres.bki` file is at hand as an example. You should also study the source code of initdb to get an idea of how the backend is invoked.

BKI input consists of a sequence of commands. Commands are made up of a number of tokens, depending on the syntax of the command. Tokens are usually separated by whitespace, but need not be if there is no ambiguity. There is no special command separator; the next token that syntactically cannot belong to the preceding command starts a new one. (Usually you would put a new command on a new line, for clarity.) Tokens can be certain key words, special characters (parentheses, commas, etc.), numbers, or double-quoted strings. Everything is case sensitive.

Lines starting with a # are ignored.

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