Re: Safe File Update (atomic)
On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 7:59 PM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:
> * Olaf van der Spek <olafvdspek@gmail.com> schrieb:
>
>> A transaction to update multiple files in one atomic go?
>
> Yes. The application first starts an transaction, creates/writes/
> removes a bunch of files and then sends a commit. The changes
> should become visible atomically and the call returns when the
> commit() is completed (and written out to disk). If there're
> conflics, the transaction is aborted w/ proper a error code.
> So, in case of a package manager, the update will run completely
> in one shot (from userland view) or not at all.
>
> I could live with:
>
> a) relatively slow performance (commit taking a second or so)
> b) abort as soon as an conflict arises
> c) files changed within the transaction are actually new ones
> (sane package managers will have to unlink text files instead
> simply overwriting nevertheless)
That would be nice, but the single file case appears to be difficult
enough already. So we might want to focus on that first.
Olaf
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