Christmas Bird Count history report system

# - - -   o p e n D a t a b a s e

def openDatabase():
    '''Open the CBC database.

      [ if file PASS_FILE is readable and contains the CBC database
        password ->
          return a pycbc.CBCData instance representing that databes
        else ->
          raise IOError ]
    '''

The database is password-protected, and the password is in a local file whose name is given in Section 13.6.1, “PASS_FILE”. The script must have the setuid permission so that it can read that file, and of course the password file must not have any world permissions.

    #-- 1
    # [ if PASS_FILE is readable ->
    #     password  :=  first line of that file, stripped
    #   else -> raise IOError ]
    passFile = file(PASS_FILE)
    password = passFile.readline().strip()
    passFile.close()

    #-- 2
    # [ if (password is the CBC database password) and
    #   (CBC database is available) ->
    #     db  :=  a pycbc.CBCData instance representing that database
    #   else ->
    try:
        db = pycbc.CBCData(password)
    except Exception, x:
        raise IOError("Can't open the CBC database: %s" % str(x))

    #-- 3
    return db