Re: Data Storage

iRing-RLopen wrote:

Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:

of data. But there are disadvantages, too. One disadvantage is
that it makes Ringlink inefficient, especially since the code for
dealing with stored data isn't very efficient, either.


Today ringmember data is stored in one file.  If each member is
stored separately in its own file, efficincy should be inmproved.


Could you please expand on that, Ulf? Maybe you'd better do it privately.

The member datafile is a risk. If a member updats his data and
writing the new file to disk, for some reason, malefunktion then
all members data is gone.  Happend on my system at least 4 times.

Really? I got to know about a couple of such incidents with one of the first Ringlink releases (more than two years ago), but after a code fix, I haven't heard of it. Nevertheless, I agree that keeping all the site data for a ring in the same file implies a risk that emphasizes the importance of taking backups.

One reason for the current one file solution is that it makes sorting/reordering of the sites easy.

I would also suggest that the statistic-files are moved into the
same directory as the ring-files and the subdirectorys for each
member is deleted. This directorys (not the files) uses unnecessary
space, how much is depending on server configuration. In my case
each directory uses 4 KB (not including file-size). 1500
ringmembers menas 6 MB of diskspace.

I'm thingking about modifying the program and remove all directorys
and stat-files, as I don't use them. I nead the space for another
websites I have on this server.

Such a modification wouldn't be that easily done, but it would require several changes all over the program.

I must say that 6 Mb disk space doesn't sound very much to me for a system that hosts rings with 1,500 sites. Shouldn't you still have non-used disk space exceeding that size, just in case?

the future. The use of MySQL databases has been mentioned once in
a while. Even if I'm anxious to keep Ringlink portable, I have
the impression that a typical web hosting account nowadays
includes MySQL. Of course, there is always a possibility to make
data storage in a MySQL database an *option* besides the current
method.


I'm looking for a host offering MySQL for a new website. I haven't
found that hosting acconts typically includes MySQL.  Many hosts
offer MySQL, but for a extra fee. Some (few) include it. Most
charge extra. Some do not allow it on basic accounts, only on more
expensive accounts. Some include MySQL in the price, others take a
setupfee, others a monthlyfee and some really greedy both. Thats at
least what I have found.


Interesting info. Thanks.

I would prefere to run Ringlink with a SQL-database. But think that
the flat file-database must be a possibility. If you run just your
own ring(s) you may not want to spend the extra money for SQL.

There may be other options. For instance, the latest Ringlink version makes use of SDBM files for the statistics. It's a binary database format that is available from Perl on all Unix like and Windows platforms.

/ Gunnar