import com.sleepycat.db.*;

public int close(int flags)
	throws DbException;

Description

The Db.close method flushes any cached database information to disk, closes any open cursors, frees any allocated resources, and closes any underlying files. Because key/data pairs are cached in memory, failing to sync the file with the Db.close or Db.sync method may result in inconsistent or lost information.

The flags value must be set to 0 or the following value:

Db.DB_NOSYNC

Do not flush cached information to disk. The Db.DB_NOSYNC flag is a dangerous option. It should be set only if the application is doing logging (with transactions) so that the database is recoverable after a system or application crash, or if the database is always generated from scratch after any system or application crash.

It is important to understand that flushing cached information to disk only minimizes the window of opportunity for corrupted data. Although unlikely, it is possible for database corruption to happen if a system or application crash occurs while writing data to the database. To ensure that database corruption never occurs, applications must either: use transactions and logging with automatic recovery; use logging and application-specific recovery; or edit a copy of the database, and once all applications using the database have successfully called Db.close, atomically replace the original database with the updated copy.

When multiple threads are using the Berkeley DB handle concurrently, only a single thread may call the Db.close method.

After Db.close has been called, regardless of its return, the Db handle may not be accessed again.

The Db.close method throws an exception that encapsulates a non-zero error value on failure, and returns Db.DB_INCOMPLETE if the underlying database still has dirty pages in the cache. (The only reason to return Db.DB_INCOMPLETE is if another thread of control were writing pages in the underlying database file at the same time as the Db.close method was called. For this reason, a return of Db.DB_INCOMPLETE can normally be ignored; or, in cases where it is a possible return value, the Db.DB_NOSYNC option should probably have been specified.)

Errors

The Db.close method may fail and throw an exception for errors specified for other Berkeley DB and C library or system methods. If a catastrophic error has occurred, the Db.close method may fail and throw a DbRunRecoveryException, in which case all subsequent Berkeley DB calls will fail in the same way.

Class

See Also