[Python-Dev] Request review of gdbm patch

[Guido van Rossum]

I'm asking for a review of the patch to gdbm at 

http://sourceforge.net/patch/?func=detailpatch&patch_id=102638&group_id=5470

I asked the author for clarification and this is what I got.

Can anybody suggest what to do?  His mail doesn't give me much
confidence in the patch. :-(

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Tue, 12 Dec 2000 13:24:13 +0100
From:    Damjan <arhiv@freemail.org.mk>
To:      Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org>
Subject: Re: your gdbm patch for Python

On Mon, Dec 11, 2000 at 03:51:03PM -0500, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> I'm looking at your patch at SourceForge:

First, I'm sorry it was such a mess of a patch, but I could't figure it out how
to send a more elaborate comment. (But then again, I would't have an email from
Guido van Rossum in my mail-box, to show of my friends :)

> and wondering two things:
> 
> (1) what does the patch do?
> 
> (2) why does the patch remove the 'f' / GDBM_FAST option?

 From the gdbm info page:
     ...The following may also be
     logically or'd into the database flags: GDBM_SYNC, which causes
     all database operations to be synchronized to the disk, and
     GDBM_NOLOCK, which prevents the library from performing any
     locking on the database file.  The option GDBM_FAST is now
     obsolete, since `gdbm' defaults to no-sync mode...
     ^^^^^^^^
(1) My patch adds two options to the gdbm.open(..) function. These are 'u' for
GDBM_NOLOCK, and 's' for GDBM_SYNC.

(2) GDBM_FAST is obsolete because gdbm defaults to GDBM_FAST, so it's removed.

I'm also thinking about adding a lock and unlock methods to the gdbm object,
but it seems that a gdbm database can only be locked and not unlocked.


- -- 
Damjan Georgievski		|           Дамјан Георгиевски
Skopje, Macedonia		|           Скопје, Македонија

------- End of Forwarded Message