title: couchdb as "briefcase": replication and/or database dumps?
body: <p>I have a need to migrate some CouchDB database data back and forth between two desktop computers at different locations. One of the computers is Windows XP, one is a Macintosh running OS X 10.5. Neither can realistically connect to the other via the internet (the PC has a firewall, the Mac doesn't have fast internet access). But I do have a USB thumb drive I take back and forth.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to do a database dump (like mysqldump for MySQL) for CouchDB so I can export from one and import to the other? I read about database replication but it seems to be only between two live databases that can talk to each other. I can copy the raw database files but I am not sure what version of CouchDB the PC is running (it's whatever the <a href="http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Windows_binary_installer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">latest native windows CouchDB installer</a> is, it tells me 0.0.0), the Mac is running the most recent version of <a href="http://janl.github.com/couchdbx/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CouchDBX</a>, and I'm not sure the file versions are compatible.</p>
  
  <p>The replication &amp; versioning features of CouchDB are very intriguing for my application so I am looking forward to getting this set up.</p>
  
  <p><strong>edit:</strong> it seems like you either need:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>couchdb replicating directly to another (or the same) couchdb server</li>
  <li>couchdb database files from the same version of couchdb</li>
  <li><a href="http://code.google.com/p/couchdb-python/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">couchdb-python tools</a> ("couchdb-dump" and "couchdb-load") but I can't get them to work reliably on WinXP+Python 2.6.2 for some reason (dump 'works' but load says it fails integrity check)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>This is really frustrating. :/</p>