Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!emory!arnold
From: arnold@mathcs.emory.edu (Arnold D. Robbins {EUCC})
Newsgroups: gnu.utils.bug
Subject: Re: big problems with gdbm 0.8
Summary: Fixed in 0.9
Message-ID: <4302@emory.mathcs.emory.edu>
Date: 28 Aug 89 11:14:18 GMT
References: <710@vector.Dallas.TX.US>
Reply-To: arnold@emory.UUCP (Arnold D. Robbins {EUCC})
Distribution: gnu
Organization: Math and Computer Science, Emory University, Atlanta GA
Lines: 27

In article <710@vector.Dallas.TX.US> chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>Third, I am getting really bad performance results.  I took a small utility
>which uses the system dbm and recompiled it with gdbm.  With the XENIX dbm,
>it took me 5 seconds to build the database.  GNU dbm takes about 90 seconds.
>And this is a very small database with only about 300 entires.
>
>This last problem is a real killer for me.  Has anybody compared gdbm
>against their native dbm?  Are the results consistent with what I'm
>seeing?

Phil has been doing lots of work to improve the code performance.  He told
me that 0.9 will be around 1.25 NDBM on writes, and perhaps .5 NDBM on reads.
In English, writes are about 25% slower but reads about twice as fast!

0.9 will also have an NDBM compatibility interface as well as the current
DBM compatibility interface.  This is a real boon.

I can't comment on how cleanly 0.9 lints, since I haven't looked, and I don't
have a very current copy, anyway.

So, patience is warranted. GDBM is coming along nicely.  I hope Phil won't
be too mad at me for talking about unreleased software.
-- 
Arnold Robbins -- Emory University Computing Center | Laundry increases
DOMAIN: arnold@unix.cc.emory.edu		    | exponentially in the
UUCP: gatech!emoryu1!arnold  PHONE: +1 404 727-7636 | number of children.
BITNET: arnold@emoryu1	     FAX:   +1 404 727-2599 |     -- Miriam Hartholz