<!--$Id: db_open.so,v 10.61 2000/10/25 15:24:44 dda Exp $-->
<!--Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by Sleepycat Software, Inc.-->
<!--All rights reserved.-->
<html>
<head>
<title>Berkeley DB: DB-&gt;open</title>
<meta name="description" content="Berkeley DB: An embedded database programmatic toolkit.">
<meta name="keywords" content="embedded,database,programmatic,toolkit,b+tree,btree,hash,hashing,transaction,transactions,locking,logging,access method,access methods,java,C,C++">
</head>
<body bgcolor=white>
        <a name="2"><!--meow--></a>    
<table><tr valign=top>
<td>
<h1>DB-&gt;open</h1>
</td>
<td width="1%">
<a href="../api_c/c_index.html"><img src="../images/api.gif" alt="API"></a><a href="../ref/toc.html"><img src="../images/ref.gif" alt="Ref"></a>
</td></tr></table>
<hr size=1 noshade>
<tt>
<h3><pre>
#include &lt;db.h&gt;
<p>
int
DB-&gt;open(DB *db, const char *file,
    const char *database, DBTYPE type, u_int32_t flags, int mode);
</pre></h3>
<h1>Description</h1>
<p>The currently supported Berkeley DB file formats (or <i>access methods</i>)
are Btree, Hash, Queue and Recno.  The Btree format is a representation
of a sorted, balanced tree structure.  The Hash format is an extensible,
dynamic hashing scheme.  The Queue format supports fast access to
fixed-length records accessed by sequentially or logical record number.
The Recno format supports fixed- or variable-length records, accessed
sequentially or by logical record number, and optionally retrieved from
a flat text file.
<p>Storage and retrieval for the Berkeley DB access methods are based on key/data
pairs, see <a href="../api_c/dbt.html">DBT</a> for more information.
<p>The DB-&gt;open interface opens the database represented by the
<b>file</b> and <b>database</b> arguments for both reading and writing.
The <b>file</b> argument is used as the name of a physical file on disk
that will be used to back the database.  The <b>database</b> argument is
optional and allows applications to have multiple logical databases in a
single physical file.  While no <b>database</b> argument needs to be
specified, it is an error to attempt to open a second database in a
<b>file</b> that was not initially created using a <b>database</b> name.
In-memory databases never intended to be preserved on disk may
be created by setting both the <b>file</b> and <b>database</b> arguments
to NULL.  Note that in-memory databases can only ever be shared by
sharing the single database handle that created them, in circumstances
where doing so is safe.
<p>The <b>type</b> argument is of type DBTYPE
and must be set to one of DB_BTREE, DB_HASH,
DB_QUEUE, DB_RECNO or DB_UNKNOWN, except
that databases of type DB_QUEUE are restricted to one per
<b>file</b>.  If <b>type</b> is DB_UNKNOWN, the database must
already exist and DB-&gt;open will automatically determine its type.
The <a href="../api_c/db_get_type.html">DB-&gt;get_type</a> function may be used to determine the underlying type of
databases opened using DB_UNKNOWN.
<p>The <b>flags</b> and <b>mode</b> arguments specify how files will be opened
and/or created if they do not already exist.
<p>The <b>flags</b> value must be set to 0 or by bitwise inclusively <b>OR</b>'ing together one or more
of the following values.
<p><dl compact>
<p><dt><a name="DB_CREATE">DB_CREATE</a><dd>Create any underlying files, as necessary.  If the files do not already
exist and the DB_CREATE flag is not specified, the call will fail.
<p><dt><a name="DB_EXCL">DB_EXCL</a><dd>Return an error if the file already exists.  Underlying filesystem
primitives are used to implement this flag.  For this reason it is only
applicable to the physical file and cannot be used to test if a database
in a file already exists.
<p>The DB_EXCL flag is only meaningful when specified with the
DB_CREATE flag.
<p><dt><a name="DB_NOMMAP">DB_NOMMAP</a><dd>Do not map this database into process memory (see the description of the
<a href="../api_c/env_set_mp_mmapsize.html">DBENV-&gt;set_mp_mmapsize</a> function for further information).
<p><dt><a name="DB_RDONLY">DB_RDONLY</a><dd>Open the database for reading only.  Any attempt to modify items in the
database will fail regardless of the actual permissions of any underlying
files.
<p><dt><a name="DB_THREAD">DB_THREAD</a><dd>Cause the DB handle returned by DB-&gt;open to be
<i>free-threaded</i>, that is, useable by multiple threads within a
single address space.
<p><dt><a name="DB_TRUNCATE">DB_TRUNCATE</a><dd>Physically truncate the underlying file, discarding all previous databases
it might have held.  Underlying filesystem primitives are used to
implement this flag.  For this reason it is only applicable to the
physical file and cannot be used to discard databases within a file.
<p>The DB_TRUNCATE flag cannot be transaction protected, and it is
an error to specify it in a transaction protected environment.
</dl>
<p>On UNIX systems, or in IEEE/ANSI Std 1003.1 (POSIX) environments, all files created by the access methods
are created with mode <b>mode</b> (as described in <b>chmod</b>(2)) and
modified by the process' umask value at the time of creation (see
<b>umask</b>(2)).  The group ownership of created files is based on
the system and directory defaults, and is not further specified by Berkeley DB.
If <b>mode</b> is 0, files are created readable and writeable by both
owner and group.  On Windows systems, the mode argument is ignored.
<p>Calling DB-&gt;open is a reasonably expensive operation, and
maintaining a set of open databases will normally be preferable to
repeatedly open and closing the database for each new query.
<p>The DB-&gt;open function returns a non-zero error value on failure and 0 on success.
<h1>Environment Variables</h1>
<p><dl compact>
<p><dt>DB_HOME<dd>If the <b>dbenv</b> argument to <a href="../api_c/db_create.html">db_create</a> was initialized using
<a href="../api_c/env_open.html">DBENV-&gt;open</a> the environment variable <b>DB_HOME</b> may be used
as the path of the database environment home.  Specifically, DB-&gt;open
is affected by the configuration value DB_DATA_DIR.
</dl>
<p><dl compact>
<p><dt>TMPDIR<dd>If the <b>file</b> and <b>dbenv</b> arguments to DB-&gt;open are
NULL, the environment variable <b>TMPDIR</b> may be used as a
directory in which to create a temporary backing file.
</dl>
<h1>Errors</h1>
<p>The DB-&gt;open function may fail and return a non-zero error for the following conditions:
<p><dl compact>
<p><dt><a name="DB_OLD_VERSION">DB_OLD_VERSION</a><dd>The database cannot be opened without being first upgraded.
<p><dt>EEXIST<dd>DB_CREATE and DB_EXCL were specified and the file exists.
<p><dt>EINVAL<dd>An invalid flag value or parameter was specified (e.g., unknown database
type, page size, hash function, pad byte, byte order) or a flag value
or parameter that is incompatible with the specified database.
<p>
The <a href="../api_c/env_open.html#DB_THREAD">DB_THREAD</a> flag was specified and spinlocks are not
implemented for this architecture.
<p>The <a href="../api_c/env_open.html#DB_THREAD">DB_THREAD</a> flag was specified to DB-&gt;open, but was not
specified to the <a href="../api_c/env_open.html">DBENV-&gt;open</a> call for the environment in which the
DB handle was created.
<p>A <b>re_source</b> file was specified with either the <a href="../api_c/env_open.html#DB_THREAD">DB_THREAD</a>
flag or the provided database environment supports transaction
processing.
<p><dt>ENOENT<dd>A non-existent <b>re_source</b> file was specified.
</dl>
<p>The DB-&gt;open function may fail and return a non-zero error for errors specified for other Berkeley DB and C library or system functions.
If a catastrophic error has occurred, the DB-&gt;open function may fail and return
<a href="../ref/program/errorret.html#DB_RUNRECOVERY">DB_RUNRECOVERY</a>, in which case all subsequent Berkeley DB calls will fail
in the same way.
<h1>See Also</h1>
<a href="../api_c/db_create.html">db_create</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_close.html">DB-&gt;close</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_cursor.html">DB-&gt;cursor</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_del.html">DB-&gt;del</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_err.html">DB-&gt;err</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_fd.html">DB-&gt;fd</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_get.html">DB-&gt;get</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_get_byteswapped.html">DB-&gt;get_byteswapped</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_get_type.html">DB-&gt;get_type</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_join.html">DB-&gt;join</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_key_range.html">DB-&gt;key_range</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_open.html">DB-&gt;open</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_put.html">DB-&gt;put</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_remove.html">DB-&gt;remove</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_bt_compare.html">DB-&gt;set_bt_compare</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_bt_minkey.html">DB-&gt;set_bt_minkey</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_bt_prefix.html">DB-&gt;set_bt_prefix</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_cachesize.html">DB-&gt;set_cachesize</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_dup_compare.html">DB-&gt;set_dup_compare</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_errcall.html">DB-&gt;set_errcall</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_errfile.html">DB-&gt;set_errfile</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_errpfx.html">DB-&gt;set_errpfx</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_flags.html">DB-&gt;set_flags</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_h_ffactor.html">DB-&gt;set_h_ffactor</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_h_hash.html">DB-&gt;set_h_hash</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_h_nelem.html">DB-&gt;set_h_nelem</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_lorder.html">DB-&gt;set_lorder</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_malloc.html">DB-&gt;set_malloc</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_pagesize.html">DB-&gt;set_pagesize</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_paniccall.html">DB-&gt;set_paniccall</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_q_extentsize.html">DB-&gt;set_q_extentsize</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_realloc.html">DB-&gt;set_realloc</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_re_delim.html">DB-&gt;set_re_delim</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_re_len.html">DB-&gt;set_re_len</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_re_pad.html">DB-&gt;set_re_pad</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_set_re_source.html">DB-&gt;set_re_source</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_stat.html">DB-&gt;stat</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_sync.html">DB-&gt;sync</a>,
<a href="../api_c/db_upgrade.html">DB-&gt;upgrade</a>
and
<a href="../api_c/db_verify.html">DB-&gt;verify</a>.
</tt>
<table><tr><td><br></td><td width="1%">
<a href="../api_c/c_index.html"><img src="../images/api.gif" alt="API"></a><a href="../ref/toc.html"><img src="../images/ref.gif" alt="Ref"></a>
</td></tr></table>
<p><font size=1><a href="http://www.sleepycat.com">Copyright Sleepycat Software</a></font>
</body>
</html>