Dumping and loading a bsddb, for humans.

Sometimes things happen with Python shelves that screw up the bsddb’s (Berkeley DB [bdb] databases*) that power them. A common way for this to happen is when two apps have it open for writing, and something goes flooey like both try to write to the same page. The bsddb emits this helpful error:

DBRunRecoveryError: [Terror, death and destruction will ensue] or something equally opaque and non-reassuring

So how to run the recovery, eh? Assuming you have the db_dump and db_load tools on your platform, take hints from Library and Extension FAQ and try this bash snippet:

#!/usr/bin/bash 

## example usage:
## $ bdb_repair  /path/to/my.db
function bdb_repair {
  BDIR=`dirname $1` #  /path/to/dir
  BADDB=`basename $1`   #  bad.db
  cd $BDIR  && \
  cp $BADDB{,.bak}  # seriously!  back it up first
  db_dump -f $BADDB.dump  $BADDB   # might take a while
  db_load -f $BADDB.dump  $BADDB.repaired
  cp -o $BADDB.repaired $BADDB
  cd -
}

So far, I’ve had universal success with this method.

If any bash gurus want to improve the error handling here, I’d appreciate it.

FOOTNOTES
* Yes, I know this is redundant.