The HEPDB package supports a dictionary in a special directory called
DICTIONARY. In the dictionary the user can enter, for any of the
directories, simple aliases for the pathnames as well as mnemonic names
for the data object elements (both limited to 8 characters). The
DICTIONARY directory, which does not make use of the standard HEPDB keys,
is automatically generated, at the top level, when the data base is
created. To start with, it has only one data object, with key 1 set to
-1. The data object contains the number of directories in the data base,
followed by 25 words for each directory, 3 integers and 22 hollerith.
The integers contain the unique numeric identifier assigned to the
directory, the number of characters in the pathname and the date of the
last modification. The 2 first hollerith are reserved to store an alias
name for the pathname (up to 8 characters) and the rest to store the
pathname itself (top directory name excluded).