Where is Berkeley DB on your system? Can you live without DB 1.85?

[Tim Peters]

[David LeBlanc]
> ...
> Hmmm... I have Python 2.2.1 binary installed from Sourceforge -
> what is that bsddb.pyd file dated 4/9/2002 in the dlls directory?

It's compiled from Sam Rushing's Win32 port of Berkeley's DB library,
version 1.85, from

    http://www.nightmare.com/software.html

under the "bsd db" link (*not* the "bsddb" link).

It's a bug pit, through no fault of Sam's.  The only reason we ship it is
that we've always shipped it, and nobody has volunteered the work to package
something better.

> ...
> <gasp> could Guido be so heartless as to imperil people's data by
> allowing the inclusion bsddb in the standard Python distro?!?

Yes <wink>.  It wasn't known to be badly damaged at the time it was first
shipped, and now it's supplied for backward compatibility.  A better
alternative would be most welcome, but PythonLabs has no bandwidth to work
on it.