[Python-Dev] Removing bsddb module from py3k (was Re: [Python-3000] No beta2 tonight) (original) (raw)

Josiah Carlson josiah.carlson at gmail.com
Sat Jul 19 18:27:15 CEST 2008

On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 3:22 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

Josiah Carlson wrote:

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Fred Drake <fdrake at acm.org> wrote:

On Jul 18, 2008, at 1:45 PM, Josiah Carlson wrote:

It's entirely possible that I know very little about what was being made available via the bsddb module, but to match the API of what is included in the documentation (plus the dictionary interface that it supports) shouldn't be terribly difficult. It's also entirely possible that the API isn't interesting if you don't support existing databases, for many applications. I see where the confusion was. I'm not suggesting that someone write a new bsddb module, I'm suggesting that we can provide something called, perhaps, ondiskdictionary, which offers the behavior of bsddb, without using bsddb anywhere, or supporting bsddb files. No, I knew what you were suggesting, I just don't see the point in doing it. If an app depends on bsddb specifically, they can either stick with the 2.x series, or they can move to 3.0 and download the externally maintained pybsddb (modulo any additional licensing checks required by a company's contracts department) or they can switch to a simpler file-based database format like sqlite3. I'm not clear on what problem you are attempting to solve with the idea of a module with the bsddb API but without an actual bsddb backend.

On-disk key -> value dictionary. In every use of bsddb that I've seen (or done myself), that's been the extent of it's use. That's what I was offering. But it seems that everyone has had experience with bsddb on a far deeper level (beyond dictionary + cursor access), and would find (like you) absolutely no use in an on-disk dictionary with a sqlite backend (which hasn't had the same maintenance issues as bsddb), which is why I withdrew the offer.

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list