To use a cursor, you must open it using the Database.openCursor() method. When you open a cursor, you can optionally pass it a CursorConfig object to set cursor properties. The cursor properties that you can set allows you to control the isolation level that the cursor will obey. See the Berkeley DB Getting Started with Transaction Processing guide for more information.

For example:

package db.GettingStarted;
    
import com.sleepycat.db.Cursor;
import com.sleepycat.db.Database;
import com.sleepycat.db.DatabaseException;

import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

...
Database myDatabase = null;
Cursor myCursor = null;

try {
    myDatabase = new Database("myDB", null, null);

    myCursor = myDatabase.openCursor(null, null);
} catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
    // Exception handling goes here ...
} catch (DatabaseException dbe) {
    // Exception handling goes here ...
}

To close the cursor, call the Cursor.close() method. Note that if you close a database that has cursors open in it, then it will throw an exception and close any open cursors for you. For best results, close your cursors from within a finally block. However, it is recommended that you always close all cursor handles immediately after their use to ensure concurrency and to release resources such as page locks.

package db.GettingStarted;
    
import com.sleepycat.db.Cursor;
import com.sleepycat.db.Database;

...
try {
    ...
} catch ... {
} finally {
    try {
        if (myCursor != null) {
            myCursor.close();
        }

        if (myDatabase != null) {
            myDatabase.close();
        }
    } catch(DatabaseException dbe) {
        System.err.println("Error in close: " + dbe.toString());
    }
}