The Berkeley DB version 2 library provides backward-compatible interfaces for the historic UNIX dbm, ndbm and hsearch interfaces. It also provides a backward-compatible interface for the historic Berkeley DB 1.85 release.

Berkeley DB version 2 does not provide database compatibility for any of the previous interfaces, and existing databases must be converted manually. To convert existing databases from the Berkeley DB 1.85 format to the Berkeley DB version 2 format, review the db_dump185 utility and the db_load utility information. No utilities are provided to convert UNIX dbm, ndbm or hsearch databases.