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When is the Database Required?

If you only want to convert .mbox files to XML using the DArcMailXml or CmdDArcMailXml programs, then you do not need a database. But if you want to search an account for messages, view message content, and export message subsets, then you need the DArcMail program and database. The DArcMail program will work with either MySQL or Sqlite3 as the database.

When executed, the DArcMail program will look for either a MySQL database or a Sqlite3 database depending on the value of a single variable in the file dm_defaults.py:

DB_METHOD='MYSQL'
    or
DB_METHOD='SQLITE'
The values of the variable DB_METHOD can be changed in a text editor.

MySQL

MySQL is an open-source client-server SQL database. It is maintained by Oracle Corporation but the MySQL Community Server is licensed without cost. Installation is not very difficult, but installation and maintenance do require some experience in administering a full-featured database system.

Sqlite3

Sqlite3 is a widely-used, open-source, light-weight SQL database. Like the proprietary Microsoft Access, Sqlite3 is a file-based system, with all the data for a single database being contained in a single host file. Application-programming interface (API) libraries to the Sqlite3 database engine (written in C) are freely available in current programming languages (Java, Python, Perl, C, C++, Ruby). As there are no database installation or maintenance procedures, there is no requirement for database administration experience.

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