Re: Big XML files... (was Re: [Pan-users] Re: Better processing of very large groups?)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:56:36 pm Ron Johnson wrote:

> Also (and maybe because I'm a DBA), this problem just *screams* for
> SQLite and a database in the "First Normal Form".

Please no. SQLite has problems with NFS. It's not so much that SQLite 
won't work on NFS as that when (not if) something breaks, it's 
difficult to unbreak it.

My employer supplies Linux desktops to prisons. We have to support a 
browser, and the system uses NFS. After an unexpected desktop shutdown, 
to recover Firefox 2 you just need to remove a couple of lock files. 
For Firefox 3, we needed to open the database (read-only) with the 
sqlite3 command-line tool, dump the data into a new sqlite database, 
quit, replace the "locked" file with the new "unlocked" file.

Needless to say, this was a major factor in use deciding not to support 
Firefox 3 as the browser on the desktop.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano