Berkeley DB vs Sqlite3

[Matthias Andree]

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008, Gour wrote:

> I'm using bogofilter on my desktop & laptop computers with Sqlite3
> database back-ends.
> 
> However, it seems that not all of its utilities work with Sqlite3
> databases, so I'm interested whether it's in, in general, recommended to
> use Berkeley DB back-end?

Hi Gour,

which one has given you problems?

Not all of the bf_* utilities are required for sqlite3 databases though,
most of them came into existence to help users handle Berkeley DB
idiosyncrasies.

If there are contrib/* scripts that don't work with sqlite3, then please
tell us which one you wanted to use and how it failed (error messages
perhaps) so we can ask the contributor if he wants to update/fix them.

I do /not/ recommended the Berkeley DB version over an established
sqlite3. In your situation, I'd suggest to stick with sqlite3.

The speed difference but SQLite3 does not, IMO, matter on personal
computers (Berkeley DB has been faster when I compared them long ago,
but sqlite3 has been optimized since).

sqlite3 is easier to handle (there are less points on the checklists to
care) - read through README.db and see for yourself.

> Is it possible to switch from Sqlite to DB?

Yes, it is. The procedure is:

- stop your mail system
- dump all your *.db files to text files with bogoutil -d.
- install the berkeleydb-based bogofilter
- load the text files back into *.db files
- test
- if everything works, start your mail system and remove the old *.db
  files - backup the dumped text files instead.

-- 
Matthias Andree