DOC HOME SITE MAP MAN PAGES GNU INFO SEARCH PRINT BOOK
 

Environments

This manual is meant as an introduction to the Berkeley DB library. Consequently, it describes how to build a very simple, single-threaded application. Consequently, this manual omits a great many powerful aspects of the DB database engine that are not required by simple applications. One of these is important enough that it warrants a brief overview here: environments.

While environments are frequently not used by applications running in embedded environments where every byte counts, they will be used by virutally any other DB application requiring anything other than the bare minimum functionality. An environment is essentially an encapsulation of one or more databases. Essentially, you open an environment and then you open databases in that environment. When you do so, the databases are created/located in a location relative to the environment's home directory.

Environments offer a great many features that a stand-alone DB database cannot offer:

All of these topics are described in the Berkeley DB Programmer's Reference Guide.