Since I use SQLite fairly regularly and I like to keep it up to date I figured I would focus on getting that updated, then worry about the Perl SQLite. (Had I known that spamassassin relies on the Perl SQLite I may have been a little more hesitant, but it all worked out ok anyway.)

Here is how I managed to update both SQLite and the Perl SQLite. I first unmerged dev-perl/DBD-SQLite with:
emerge --unmerge dev-perl/DBD-SQLite

I then updated SQLite with:
emerge -u sqlite

Which changed the USE settings to “-extensions” which meant that when I tried to emerge DBD-SQLite it failed due to the missing USE requirements. So I took a stab at it and did:
USE="extensions" emerge sqlite
Which built cleanly without any problems, and after which a quick
emerge dev-perl/DBD-SQLite worked great.

So, in a quick and easy cut and paste format the work-around is:
emerge --unmerge DBD-SQLite
emerge -u sqlite
USE="extensions" emerge sqlite
emerge DBD-SQLite

Why the work-around is required I don’t know at the moment as I don’t have the time to dig through the ebuild files and figure out where the issue is, although I am sure if I had waited a bit updated ebuild files will come down the pipeline to correct the issue. (Patience is a virtue, but I have never been all that virtuous.)

There are only about a thousand PDOs out there, and perhaps a dozen or so of them are really functional and (in a few cases) very polished pieces of work. So why am I messing with writing my own? A couple of reasons:

1. I like to have coding signatures that are consistent, whether I am working with PostgreSQL, MySQL or (heaven help us all) SQLite.
2. I like to have coding signatures that are (reasonably) consistent across different languages – in this case Python and PHP.
3. I wanted to take advantage of Prepared Statements where I could, even though the PHP implementations of those are pretty weak (especially in the case of MySQL).

Currently implemented in

• Python:
  • PostgreSQL (with prepared statements)
  • SQLite (no prepared statements).
• PHP
  • PostgreSQL (with prepared statements)
  • MySQL (with prepared statements)
  • SQLite (no prepared statements)

Here’s an example of how they work (in most simplistic terms):

#in Python
from pyDB import *
db = pyDB('mysite')
newid = db.insert('INSERT INTO test (name, value) VALUES (?,?)',['foo','bar'])
update_count = db.update('UPDATE test SET value=? WHERE id=?',['baz',newid])
results = db.select('SELECT * FROM test')
for row in results:
    for i in row:
        print "\t", i,"\t", row[i]
delete_count = db.delete('DELETE FROM test WHERE id=?',[newid])

//in PHP
require_once('phpdb.php');
$db = new phpDB('test');
$newid = $db->insert('INSERT INTO test (name, value) VALUES (?,?)',array('foo','bar'));
$update_count = $db->update('UPDATE test SET value=? WHERE id=?',array('baz',newid));
$results = db->select('SELECT * FROM test');
foreach($results as $row)
{
    foreach ($row as $key=>$val)
    {
        print "\t$key\t$val";
    }
}
$delete_count = $db->delete('DELETE FROM test WHERE id=?',array($newid));

The page with links to the code is in the list up top, and everything is MIT license. Enjoy.