relational database?

[Paul Boddie]

"Ruediger Maehl" <ruediger.maehl_nospam at web.de> wrote in message news:<newscache$d8oxtg$iv4$1 at www-neu.dzsh.de>...
>
> "Trung Hoang" <thoa0025 at mail.usyd.edu.au> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:pRzp8.4373$hi7.15765 at news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> > What relational database is easy to setup and use with python? besides
> > msql (im having some problems)
> 
> SAPDB, a full featured database for free at www.sapdb.org
> with Python interface.

I'm not sure I would second that recommendation unless SAP DB has
changed dramatically over the past few weeks. I found that the
installation was quite a bit more complicated than, for example, MySQL
(at least on Windows) and upon issuing the arcane commands for
restarting database instances, the software would complain that the
instances needed restarting, which was hardly very reassuring with
respect to either the stability or the usability of the software.

As for the Python DB-API module, I couldn't get any version of it I
found to work with the database system. Admittedly, my objective was
to get a JDBC connection up and running, which was eventually
successful, and I therefore cut that particular side-investigation
short.

Despite it's often-cited shortcomings, MySQL and the MySQLdb module
are quite easy to set up. On UNIX systems, PostgreSQL and pgPySQL are
possibly as easy, although one doesn't need to suffer a manual with
PostgreSQL which consists of a single >1.5MB HTML file. I've also had
success with Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere and mxODBC (without a
driver manager), but that software is commercially licensed and may
not even be available any more.

Another interesting issue that one might want to consider later on is
Unicode support with database systems and Python DB-API modules. Some
modules don't seem to support Unicode (pyPgSQL, for example), whereas
others apparently rely on the database system for such support to
actually function (eg. mxODBC). Some people may find this an
irritation earlier than others, however.

Paul