[Zope3-dev] Replacing class refs in ZODB

[Tim Peters]

[Jim Fulton]
> ...
> It depends on what "this" is.  One could fairly straightforwardly
> write a script that could convert an off-line database.  I think we
> really want to be able to do this without taking the database off-line.

It's my impression that most of the time this issue comes up on the
zodb-dev list, the poster would gladly settle for running an offline
conversion script.  For them, it's the difference between unending
pain, and one bout of concentrated pain that could be behind them the
next day.

Shane Hathaway did experiments with such scripts, but IIRC they
weren't all that straightforward.  His old code for that lives in the
zodbex project on SourceForge:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/zodbex/

Unfortunately, ViewCVS is broken today for all SF projects having
names starting with 'z' (not kidding!), and zodbex never did a file
release, so I'm not sure there's a reasonably simple way to get at the
source code today.

I would love to add an offline conversion script to ZODB 3.4's tools,
but don't believe I'll have any time to work on it.  If someone wants
to contribute a good one, cool.  It would make a good topic for the
ZODB sprint at PyCon this March too (IMO) -- _some_ principled way to
get real relief would be a good thing.