Databases: Which one's right for me?

[Tim Churches]

On Sat, 2004-01-10 at 12:17, Marc wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Having never used a database before and immersing myself in reading
> stuff about databases over the last two days I have come to this
> conclusion, I still don't know which one I need. I've been using
> Python for a while, storing things that I'll need later in files. I am
> now looking for a better solution; ergo the need for a database.
> 
> Basically I need a db that will travel with my executable script and
> faithfully store and edit the data needed in that script. People using
> this script will need to be stand alone users. Having a client/server
> arrangement is not possible over a network.

You know about pickling, don't you, specifically cPickle. If not,
investigate that first.

> Also, installing some type of db engine outside of Python is also not
> possible. This rules out installing such readily available databases
> as mySQL or any other type of db that must have a separate install.
> Everything must be contained within the Python executable package.
> However, all of the users WILL have MS Access already installed. So
> that is a good possibility, and I have already played around with DAO
> and run a couple of scripts with it.
...
> So from reading I've narrowed it down to two possibilities - MS Access
> with DAO and Gadfly. What I can't get from reading is experience or
> someone who has done this type of thing before and already knows which
> one will work best based on what I need to do. Or, if there exists
> another solution other than the two I mentioned, please throw that out
> there because it's almost impossible to completely examine every
> possibility out there. All suggestions are helpful.

Look at the support for the various flavours of the BSD database which
are part of the standard Python library, and also the shelve interface
to those databases.

Also look at PySQLite (see http://pysqlite.sourceforge.net/ ) and
MetaKit (http://www.equi4.com/metakit/python.html).

-- 

Tim C

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