Re: Difference between EBDB and BBDB

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>> Right now I'd say two big differences are multiple record types (there
>> are separate record types for people and organizations, and records can
>> have "roles" at multiple organizations) and internationalization
>> (phones/addresses can be aware of national formats, as can non-English
>> scripts for names).
>
> It sounds like, as one big difference, they are incompatible. You
> cannot use the same "database" records for both. Is that right?

That's right.

> If so, that's a big difference. If so, does either provide a function
> to import records from the other?

EBDB can import from BBDB; EBDB hasn't been around long enough for
anyone to want to go the other way. If someone tried it for a couple
months and hated it, but didn't want to lose their contacts, I could
pretty easily write a BBDB exporter.

EBDB also has pluggable/swappable databases, so in theory one could make
a database type that stored to a BBDB-usable file, but I'm not sure why
you'd want to do that.

I forgot EBDB's other major selling-point: it has a manual!

Eric