Manual Db4O

Welcome
db4o is the native Java, .NET and Mono open source object database.
This tutorial was written to get you started with db4o as quickly as possible. Before you start, please
make sure that you have downloaded the latest db4o distribution from the db4objects website.

Join the db4o Community
Join the db4o community for help, tips and tricks.
Ask for help in the db4o forums at anytime.
And take a look at additional resources on the community website.
If you want to stay informed, subscribe to our db4o blogs

Links
In order to access free developer resources you may want to register on db4o developer website.
Feel free register to the forums http://www.db4o.com/Users/register.aspx.
And here are some further links on developer.db4o.com that you may find useful:
AllDownloads
SVN Repository
Community Projects

Download Contents
The db4o Java distribution comes as one zip file, db4o-8.0-java.zip. When you unzip this file, you get
the following directory structure:

Please take a look at all the supplied documentation formats to choose the one that works best for

www.db4o.com

you:
.

db4o-8.0/doc/api/index.html
The API documentation for db4o issupplied as JavaDocs HTML files. While you read through this
tutorial it may be helpful to look into the API documentation occasionally.

db4o-8.0/doc/reference/index.html
The reference documentation is a complete compilation for experienced db4o users.

db4o-8.0/doc/tutorial/index.html
This is the interactive HTML tutorial. Examples can be run "live" against a db4o database from within
thebrowser. In order to use the interactive functionality a Java JRE 1.5 or above needs to be installed
and integrated into the browser. Java security settings have to allow applets to be run. If you have
problems using the interactive functionality, please refer to Tutorial Troubleshooting.

db4o-8.0/doc/tutorial/db4o-8.0-tutorial.pdf
The PDF version of the tutorial allows best fulltext searchcapabilities.

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1. First Glance
Before diving straight into the first source code samples let's get you familiar with some basics.

1.1. The db4o engine
The db4o object database engine consists of one single core jar file. In addition you may want to use
client/server library or optional components. You may also get it all in a single jar "db4o-all":db4o-8.0-core-java5.jar
is built for Java JDK 5 and JDK 6

If you intend to use client/server version of db4o you will additionally need the client/server library :

db4o-8.0-cs-java5.jar

Some advanced functionality such as cluster support, platform-specific IO adapters,
statistic tools etc can be added by including the db4o optional library:

db4o-8.0-optional-java5.jar

You can also get all of theabove in a single jar:

db4o-8.0-all-java5.jar

1.2. Installation
If you add one of the above db4o-*.jar files to your CLASSPATH db4o is installed. For beginners it is
recommended to use "db4o-all" library to avoid confusion with the location of certain classes. In case
you work with an integrated development environment like Eclipse you would copy the db4o-*.jar to
the /lib/ folder underyour project and add db4o to your project as a library.

1.3. Object Manager Enterprise installation
Object Manager Enterprise (OME) is an object browser for db4o databases. OME installation can be
found in /ome folder of the distribution. The zip file in this folder contains the Eclipse plugin version of
OME.
To install the plugin, you need to have a version of Eclipse >= 3.3 installed.Unzip the file to a folder of
your choice. Then open Eclipse, select 'Help' -> 'Software Updates...' -> 'Available Software' from the
menu. Choose 'Add Site...' -> 'Local...' and select the unzipped folder. Follow the Eclipse Update
Manager instructions for the OME feature from here on.
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The actual menu structure may vary over Eclipse versions. (The above applies to Eclipse 3.4...