I would like to announce the first beta of version 2 of KirbyBase, a simple, pure-Python database management system that stores it's data in plain-text files. Version 2 is a total rewrite of the code, a major change in the api, and a major improvement (I hope) in the syntax used to express queries, inserts, and updates.
Because of the dramatic changes, I wanted to get this beta out in the hopes that I can get some early feedback on the new api and syntax, before releasing version 2. You can download the beta from here: http://www.netpromi.com/files/KirbyBase_Python_2.0_beta_1.zip Included in the zip file is a script, kbtest.py that has numerous examples of the new syntax. I'll try to give you a small flavor of it here: To specify a select query in the old version of KirbyBase you would do something like this: db.select('plane.tbl', ['country', 'speed'], ['USA', '> 300']) which says, "Select all planes from the US with a speed greater than 300mph. In the new version of KirbyBase you could state the query using named arguments: plane_tbl.select(country='USA', speed='> 300') or, using a dictionary: plane_tbl.select({'country': 'USA', 'speed': '> 300'}) or, you could even use a lambda, like this: plane_tbl.select(lambda r: r.country == 'USA' and r.speed > 300) I personally prefer the latter, but I realize that lambda's are quite controversial just now, so I offer alternative ways to specify select criteria. One of the cool things about using lambdas is that it gives you more power in your selects, like being able to use regular expressions and being able to use "or" logic. Anyway, this is just a small taste of the changes. The changes actually go much deeper and, I think, make the resulting api much more "Pythonic". About the only thing that hasn't changed is the table structure in the physical file (well, there is one small change, but it is easily made). It is currently a good bit slower than the current version of KirbyBase; I will work on optimizing it after the api is frozen. For those of you who have used the Ruby version of KirbyBase, this new Python version closely resembles that, while trying to be as Python-like as possible. There is no manual yet, but I think you can get a good feel for the differences by looking at kbtest.py. I would be very interested in any feedback you can give me on the new version. Jamey Cribbs [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
