[Python-Dev] Distutils confuses Berkeley DB and dbm?

[Skip Montanaro]

    Skip> Why the proliferation?

    Martin> Because any specific version of the Sleepycat code can only
    Martin> access a few database file format versions. Older databases
    Martin> cannot be accessed with newer library implementations. Hence,
    Martin> you need to link explicitly with older libraries to access older
    Martin> databases.

I think it's a bad idea to tie into an external vendor's release
idiosyncracies that way.  Sleepycat does provide utilities with each release
which allows users to migrate from older file formats to newer ones.  I
would rather see some embellishment of the bsddb module that allows
programmers to query file format types and possibly convert file formats by
calling out to the Sleepycat-provided utilities.

Skip