Error Returns
Prev | Chapter 1. Introduction to Berkeley DB | Next

## Error Returns

In addition to exceptions, the DB interfaces always return a value of 0 on success. If the operation does not succeed for any reason, the return value will be non-zero.

If a system error occurred (for example, DB ran out of disk space, or permission to access a file was denied, or an illegal argument was specified to one of the interfaces), DB returns an `errno` value. All of the possible values of `errno` are greater than 0.

If the operation did not fail due to a system error, but was not successful either, DB returns a special error value. For example, if you tried to retrieve data from the database and the record for which you are searching does not exist, DB would return `DB_NOTFOUND`, a special error value that means the requested key does not appear in the database. All of the possible special error values are less than 0.

Prev | Up | Next
Exception Handling | Home | Getting and Using DB