Re: What's cooking in e2fsprogs.git (topics)

[Florian Weimer <fweimer@bfk.de>]

* Theodore Tso:

> Hm.  I was very concerned about using db4, mainly because of the ABI
> and on-disk format compatibility nightmare, which is why I chose tdb.

If you don't use the transactional data store, the B-tree disk format
hasn't changed in years.  The API is fairly stable, too (not the ABI,
of course, because it's deliberately tied to a particular version by
most distros).

The main issues I see with Berkeley DB are: it assumes atomic page
writes (even in transactional data store mode), it writes database
files in a way that maximizes file-system level fragmentation, and
sequential scans are unbearably slow.  Oh, and most applications using
TDS do not handle recovery and upgrades properly. (For them, SQLite
would probably have been a better choice. 8-/)

-- 
Florian Weimer                <fweimer@bfk.de>
BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
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