[Python-Dev] Ext4 data loss

[Barry Warsaw]

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On Mar 10, 2009, at 4:23 PM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de>  
> wrote:
>> Multiple blogs and news sites are swamped with a discussion about  
>> ext4
>> and KDE 4.0. Theodore Ts'o - the developer of ext4 - explains the  
>> issue
>> at
>> https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/317781/comments/54 
>> .
>>
>>
>> Python's file type doesn't use fsync() and be the victim of the very
>> same issue, too. Should we do anything about it?
>
> If I understand the post properly, it's up to the app to call fsync(),
> and it's only necessary when you're doing one of the rename dances, or
> updating a file in place. Basically, as he explains, fsync() is a very
> heavyweight operation; I'm against calling it by default anywhere.

Right.  Python /applications/ should call fsync() and do the rename  
dance if appropriate, and fortunately it's easy enough to implement in  
Python.  Mailman's queue runner has done exactly this for ages.

Barry

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