Interface differences between TDB and NTDB. - ntdb shares 'struct TDB_DATA' with tdb, but TDB defines the TDB_DATA typedef, whereas ntdb defines NTDB_DATA (ie. both are compatible). If you include both ntdb.h and tdb.h, #include tdb.h first, otherwise you'll get a compile error when tdb.h re-defined struct TDB_DATA. - ntdb functions return NTDB_SUCCESS (ie 0) on success, and a negative error on failure, whereas tdb functions returned 0 on success, and -1 on failure. tdb then used tdb_error() to determine the error; this API is nasty if we ever want to support threads, so is not supported. - ntdb's ntdb_fetch() returns an error, tdb's returned the data directly (or tdb_null, and you were supposed to check tdb_error() to find out why). - ntdb's ntdb_nextkey() frees the old key's dptr, in tdb you needed to do this manually. - tdb's tdb_open/tdb_open_ex took an explicit hash size. ntdb's hash table resizes as required. - ntdb uses a linked list of attribute structures to implement logging and alternate hashes. tdb used tdb_open_ex, which was not extensible. - ntdb does locking on read-only databases (ie. O_RDONLY passed to ntdb_open). tdb did not: use the NTDB_NOLOCK flag if you want to suppress locking. - ntdb's log function is simpler than tdb's log function. The string is already formatted, and it takes an enum ntdb_log_level not a tdb_debug_level, and which has only three values: NTDB_LOG_ERROR, NTDB_LOG_USE_ERROR and NTDB_LOG_WARNING. - ntdb provides ntdb_deq() for comparing two NTDB_DATA, and ntdb_mkdata() for creating an NTDB_DATA. - ntdb's ntdb_name() returns a copy of the name even for NTDB_INTERNAL dbs. - ntdb does not need tdb_reopen() or tdb_reopen_all(). If you call fork() after during certain operations the child should close the tdb, or complete the operations before continuing to use the tdb: ntdb_transaction_start(): child must ntdb_transaction_cancel() ntdb_lockall(): child must call ntdb_unlockall() ntdb_lockall_read(): child must call ntdb_unlockall_read() ntdb_chainlock(): child must call ntdb_chainunlock() ntdb_parse() callback: child must return from ntdb_parse() - ntdb will not open a non-tdb file, even if O_CREAT is specified. - There is no ntdb_traverse_read. For operating on TDB files, you can simulate it by ntdb_add_flag(tdb, NTDB_RDONLY); ntdb_traverse(); ntdb_remove_flag(tdb, NTDB_RDONLY). This may be desirable because traverse on TDB files use a write lock on the entire database unless it's read-only. - Failure inside a transaction (such as a lock function failing) does not implicitly cancel the transaction; you still need to call ntdb_transaction_cancel(). - There is no NTDB_CLEAR_IF_FIRST flag; it has severe scalability and API problems. If necessary, you can emulate this by using the open hook and placing a 1-byte lock at offset 4. If your program forks, you will need to place this lock again in the child.