couple more questions about sqlite

[Joel Rosdahl]

John Salerno <johnjsal at NOSPAMgmail.com> writes:

> What is really confusing is that I did a search for 'sqlite' in my
> Ubuntu repositories and it came up with entries like this:
>
> python2.4-pysqlite1.1   python interface to SQLite 3
> python2.4-pysqlite2     python interface to SQLite 3
> python2.4-pysqlite      python interface to SQLite 2

That's python2.4-sqlite, not python2.4-pysqlite. The reason for both
having pythonX.Y-foo and python-foo packages is Debian's (and
therefore Ubuntu's) Python package policy.

> python-pysqlite1.1      python interface to SQLite 3
> python-pysqlite2        python interface to SQLite 3
> python-sqlite           python interface to SQlite 2
>
> Needless to say, the numbering had me banging my head against my
> desk.

Sorry to hear that, and I can understand that the names are a bit
confusing.

Here's the story behind the mess:

In the beginning (well, at least in 2003 when I found out about
SQLite), SQLite was up to version 2.something and the Python module
was called sqlite.py. While the Python module *project* was called
pysqlite 0.something, Debian modules were generally called python-foo
when providing the module foo; hence the name python-sqlite.

Then, SQLite 3 was released (incompatible with SQLite 2 databases),
and pysqlite 1.1 was released with the same module name (sqlite.py)
and API as the old sqlite.py module but linked against SQLite 3. I
decided not to package that version but instead wait for pysqlite 2, a
rewritten and improved version linked against SQLite 3 and with a new
Python API.

pysqlite 2 was released and the Python module was called
pysqlite2.dbapi2. I didn't think python-sqlite3 would be a good name
for the Debian package since there were actually two different
pysqlite versions (both actively maintained) linked against SQLite3,
so I ended up calling the package python-pysqlite2, following the name
and version of the pysqlite project instead of the module.

Finally, by request of Debian users, I also packaged the other
pysqlite version linked against SQLite 3 giving the package
python-pysqlite1.1.

Oh, and then there's python-apsw too. :-)

Regards,
Joel (maintainer of Debian's Python-related sqlite packages)

-- 
Joel Rosdahl <joel at rosdahl.net>
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