The only exception is in the case of cursor operations.
Cursors identify a particular position in a file.
As a result, application writers are encouraged to close cursors as soon as possible. It is important to realize that concurrent applications that use locking must ensure that two concurrent threads do not block each other. However, because Btree and Hash access method page splits can occur at any time, there is virtually no way to guarantee that an application that writes the database cannot deadlock. Applications running without the protection of transactions may deadlock, and can leave the database in an inconsistent state when they do so. Applications that need concurrent access, but not transactions, are more safely implemented using the Berkeley DB Concurrent Data Store Product.