[Spambayes] FAQ: 4.18 How do I use a pickle for storage?

[Skip Montanaro]

    >> I'm trying to setup Spambayes on my Mac OS X 10.3. I just installed 
    >> Python 2.3 which I just downloaded.
    Tony> [bsddb not available]

    Tony> Hmm.  I thought that bsddb was included with all versions of 2.3,
    Tony> including the one that Apple bundles with Jaguar.  I could easily
    Tony> be wrong, though.  I've cc'd this to Skip, because I believe he
    Tony> would know the answer to that (and might otherwise miss this
    Tony> message).  Skip?

Apple's Python does indeed have bsddb, but it's the old, evil 1.85 thing
that Spambayes won't use:

    % PYTHONSTARTUP= /usr/bin/python -S
    Python 2.2 (#1, 07/14/02, 23:25:09) 
    [GCC Apple cpp-precomp 6.14] on darwin
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> import bsddb
    >>> dir(bsddb)
    ['__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', 'btopen', 'error', 'hashopen', 'rnopen']

(Note the very minimal API with just the *open functions.)

You will not get the new non-evil bsddb package when installing Python
unless you've already installed an acceptable version of Berkeley DB (>= 3.3
I think), though you may get bsddb185.  I use fink so have it via that.  You
can download and install it from sleepycat.com though.

    Tony> You can still use a pickle, although you're right that this makes
    Tony> it difficult to do that!  (We'll have to address that at some
    Tony> point).  You'll need to create a "bayescustomize.ini" or
    Tony> ".spambayesrc" file yourself and put in it:

    Tony>   [Storage]
    Tony>   persistent_use_database:pickle

    Tony> (without the leading spaces).  The tricky thing is where to put
    Tony> it.  Again, Skip would know this better than me stuck here on my
    Tony> Windows machine.  I suspect that calling it ".spambayesrc" and
    Tony> putting it in your Home directory would work, but I might be
    Tony> wrong.

You can put it anywhere you like as long as you have a BAYESCUSTOMIZE
environment variable that refers to it, e.g.:

    BAYESCUSTOMIZE=$HOME/hammie.opt ; export BAYESCUSTOMIZE

Skip