Berkeley DB Reference Guide: Access Methods

Database cursors

A database cursor is a sequential pointer to the database entries. It allows traversal of the database and access to duplicate keyed entries. Cursors are used for operating on collections of records, for iterating over a database, and for saving handles to individual records, so that they can be modified after they have been read.

The DB->cursor function is the standard interface for opening a cursor into a database. Upon return the cursor is not initialized to point to any location. Positioning occurs as part of the first cursor operation.

Once a database cursor has been opened, there are five additional standard access method operations that can be performed. Each of these operations is performed using a method that is referenced from the returned cursor handle.

DBcursor->c_close

Close the cursor

DBcursor->c_del

Delete a record

DBcursor->c_dup

Duplicate a cursor

DBcursor->c_get

Retrieve a record

DBcursor->c_put

Store a record

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