[Python-Dev] bsddb3 upgrade woes - more gentle transition?

[Skip Montanaro]

I've seen a couple messages on c.l.py and the spambayes list about
"breakage" with the new bsddb3 module.  In both cases the breakage they
occurred probably wasn't directly related to the change of the modules.
It's almost certain that they have two versions of Berkeley DB installed and
were using a 2.x or 1.8[56] version with the old bsddb module and are now
linking against the 3.x or 4.x library with the new module.

Given that most people aren't aware of how to convert their database files
and very possibly don't have the necessary RPMs (or other system-specific
packages) installed to do the file conversion, I think we need to work a
little harder to smooth the transition.  I'm not certain just what form that
should take.  At the very least I will write some text in Misc/NEWS to
better indicate what the underlying problem is and ways to solve it.

I suspect that many people won't have immediate access to Sleepycat's
conversion tools (for any number of reasons).  I think a pair of dump/load
scripts in Tools/scripts which use pickle as an intermediate format would
also be helpful.

Skip