Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: C News: batchrunning (on|off) perhaps ?
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.041256.26775@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Nov27.161854.24449@robobar.co.uk> <q!6mg2.e=4@smurf.sub.org>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 04:12:56 GMT

In article <q!6mg2.e=4@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes:
>Does the dbz database have a flag to indicate that the database has been
>closed cleanly? If not, it should probably be added..?

Unfortunately, it's impossible to do right.  I thought about this a bit,
but the combination of stdio buffering, buffer caches, and the Nightmare
File System make it virtually impossible to make such a flag trustworthy.

However, there basically isn't much room for inconsistency.  Particularly
if you are not using the in-core facility, writes go out immediately anyway.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry