[Python-Dev] [OT] [Q] corruption in DB files?

[Skip Montanaro]

    Greg> You're the Smart Guys that I know, and it seems this is also the
    Greg> forum where I once heard a long while back that DB can
    Greg> occasionally corrupt its files.

    ...

    Greg> A question just came up elsewhere about DB and I seemed to recall
    Greg> somebody mentioning the occasional corruption. Oh, maybe it was
    Greg> related to multiple threads.

Yes, Berkeley DB 1.85 (exposed through the bsddb module in Python) has bugs
in the hash implementation.  They never fixed them (well maybe in 1.86?),
but moved on to version 2.x.  Of course, they changed the function call
interface and the file format, so many people didn't follow.  They do
provide a 1.85-compatible API but you have to #include db_185.h instead of
db.h.

As far as I know, if you stick to the btree interface with 1.85 you should
be okay.  Unfortunately, both the anydbm and dbhash modules both use the
hash interface, so if you're trying to be more or less portable and not
modify your Python sources, you've also got buggy db files...

Someone did create a libdb 2.x-compatible module that exposes more of the
underlying functionality.  Check the VoP for it.

libdb == Berkeley DB == Sleepycat...

Skip