IDBObjectStore: openCursor() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers.

The openCursor() method of the IDBObjectStore interface returns an IDBRequest object, and, in a separate thread, returns a new IDBCursorWithValue object. Used for iterating through an object store with a cursor.

Syntax

openCursor()
openCursor(query)
openCursor(query, direction)

Parameters

query Optional

A key or IDBKeyRange to be queried. If a single valid key is passed, this will default to a range containing only that key. If nothing is passed, this will default to a key range that selects all the records in this object store.

direction Optional

A string telling the cursor which direction to travel. The default is next. Valid values are:

next: The cursor is opened at the start of the store; then, the cursor returns all records, even duplicates, in the increasing order of keys.
nextunique: The cursor is opened at the start of the store; then, the cursor returns all records, that are not duplicates, in the increasing order of keys.
prev: The cursor is opened at the end of the store; then, the cursor returns all records, even duplicates, in the decreasing order of keys.
prevunique: The cursor is opened at the end of the store; then, the cursor returns all records, that are not duplicates, in the decreasing order of keys.

Return value

An IDBRequest object on which subsequent events related to this operation are fired.

If the operation is successful, the value of the request's result property is:

an IDBCursorWithValue object pointing at the first record matching the given query
null if no matching records were found.

Exceptions

This method may raise a DOMException of one of the following types:

InvalidStateError DOMException: Thrown if this IDBObjectStore or IDBIndex has been deleted.
TransactionInactiveError DOMException: Thrown if this IDBObjectStore's transaction is inactive.
DataError DOMException: Thrown if the specified key or key range is invalid.

Examples

In this simple fragment we create a transaction, retrieve an object store, then use a cursor to iterate through all the records in the object store:

const transaction = db.transaction("name", "readonly");
const objectStore = transaction.objectStore("name");
const request = objectStore.openCursor();
request.onsuccess = (event) => {
  const cursor = event.target.result;
  if (cursor) {
    // cursor.value contains the current record being iterated through
    // this is where you'd do something with the result
    cursor.continue();
  } else {
    // no more results
  }
};

Specifications

Specification
Indexed Database API 3.0 # ref-for-dom-idbobjectstore-opencursor②

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Apr 6, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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