Re: [Koha-devel] Repetitious behavior repeatedly

[paul POULAIN]

Andrew Arensburger wrote:

>         Currently, every script and module that requires configuration
> values has a snippet of code that reads /etc/koha.conf. This means
> that a particular operation might cause a script to read
> /etc/koha.conf several times. That can't be good for performance. In
> addition, since the snippet of code is nearly identical everywhere,
> it's just begging to be put into a separate function.
>         To that end, I've written C4::Config module, which reads
> /etc/koha.conf (or a file of your choice, or the file pointed to by
> the $KOHA_CONF environment variable), and caches the results.
>         If people think this is a Good Idea, just let me know where to
> send the code.
>
>         Along those same lines, a lot of functions use
>         $dbh = C4Connect;
> to get a handle to the Koha database. The way C4Connect is
> implemented, it creates a new handle each time. So if 'search.pl'
> finds ten results, it'll open 14 connections to the database. This
> seems wasteful, especially if the web server and database server
> aren't the same machine.
I already saw and points this problem a few months ago, but due to lack 
of time...
Note in the new MARC API, EVERY function is called with $dbh being 1st 
parameter... (if one is not : then it's a bug, or it doesn't use db 
access at all)

>         So if C4::Config is well received, I'll also fix C4Connect to
> cache the database handle and return the same one each time, if it
> can.
>         Finally, a number of scripts need to know which branches or
> item types exist. But I'll venture that after the initial setup,
> neither of these changes more than once every few months. It seems
> rather silly to have a script query the database for these values,
> when they could be cached locally.
>         Hence, it would make sense to save this information in a Perl
> module on the web server, so that scripts don't have to query the
> database each time. And run a cron job once an hour to regenerate this
> module from the information in the database.
>         Thoughts? Is this sensible, or am I full of it?
I agree. And I can add another table : the "stopword", which is HEAVILY 
used when you add a marc record.
Another idea :
would it be possible to change $dbh to transform it in a "koha param 
object container" having :
* the db handle
* /etc/koha.conf parameters
* some "static" tables
the best would be to be still able to have $dbh->prepare or $dbh->do, 
but to add $dbh->param() to get koha parameter of $dbh->stopwords to get 
hash or array of stopwords...

If we could, then we hadn't to modify all koha API.
--
Paul