Re: [Zope] Versioned connectors from ZODB

2005-07-12 Thread Tim Peters
[Etienne Labuschagne]
>>> . . . Versions solves this for me.

[Tim Peters]
>> Maybe like death would solve my problem with overdue taxes .

[Etienne]
> I did get the versioned connections to work (so far), BUT, I will
> definately take your word on it and seek another solution :)

If that works for you, don't let nay-sayers scare you away.  I don't
think there are any reports of version bugs open in the Zope collector
at present -- but that could just mean that everyone stays away from
them now.

>>   Like, e.g., in the ZODB 3.2 line,
>>
>> otherdb = ZODB.DB(storage, cache_size=100, pool_size=2)
>>
>> Then connections obtained via otherdb.open() will hang if two threads
>> already have connections from `otherdb` (that's the effect of
>> `pool_size`), and will have ZODB memory caches that strive to keep no
>> more than 100 objects in memory across transaction boundaries (the
>> effect of `cache_size`).
>> 
 
> to double check:
> 
> otherdb = ZODB.DB(existingdb._storage, cache_size=100, pool_size=2)
> 
> is ok?  It seems that you can create more than one DB instance that
> shares one storage object.

The code won't stop you from doing that, but as I said last time, I'd
use ZEO and use a fresh ClientStorage for each DB.  ZEO was designed
to support this kind of use; nothing else was.

> I hit upon the idea of creating another DB instance and sharing the
> storage object myself yesterday, but wasn't sure what the
> repurcussions will be.

Neither am I, if you don't use ZEO.  Normally I'd spend time digging
into the code trying to find answers, but I don't have time for that
today.  It's possible that if you asked on the zodb-dev list, Jim
Fulton or Jeremy Hylton would know more answers off the tops of their
heads.  Sorry, but I don't.

> Your post answers most of my questions.

At least the ZEO part did .

>  I have one left, though:  if I do decide to share the storage object
> (and not go ZEO for whatever reason), will the caches between the two
> DB objects not get out of sync?  In other words, will one DB object
> know to invalidate objects in it's caches should that object be
> changed through another DB instance?  I know ZEO does this for you,
> but I'd like to know what the case would be for two DBs in one
> process.

See above:  ZEO should work fine.  If you try to do it without ZEO,
I'm not sure what will happen.  I pointed out one "obvious" bad
consequence of trying to share a storage last time (that closing any
DB will close the storage across all DB's sharing that storage).

In general, invalidations get sent out by a DB, to all (& only) the
connections obtained from that DB.  So yes, if you're not using ZEO
(which goes on to broadcast invalidations to all connected clients),
caches can get out of synch across DBs.  But I don't know whether that
matters to you either.  For example, perhaps you're willing to create
a new DB whenever you need a temporary connection, and what you do
with it then is read-only and finishes quickly, or ... I just don't
know.

> My other option is to create the connections "by hand" (that way I can
> control the cache size easily) and keep my own little pool of
> connections with a modified close method that does not put my
> connections back into the "normal" pool.  But I'm afraid I may end up
> with a new can of worms that way.

I'd definitely advise against that.  The Connection constructor isn't
meant to be called outside of ZODB internals.  Note that you can't
even call it without passing a db, and there's an intricate dance
between Connection and DB methods that's mostly undocumented and hard
to get right.



> I use the ZODB directly, but from within Zope.  The connections are
> used in long-running processes that are not nescesarily
> browser-triggered.  Some of them are scheduled events that are started
> up in their own thread.  From there the need to get new connections to
> the ZODB.  I have quite a bit of experience working safely with
> multiple threads and the ZODB, so I'm sure I have that part right.  My
> problem had more to do with "cache contamination" and reserving
> "special connections" for specific processes.

Since there's no machinery aiming specifically at that, I'm afraid
it's bound to be painful one way or another -- except that, using ZEO,
it sounds quite straightforward.
___
Zope maillist  -  Zope@zope.org
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
**   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
(Related lists -
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )


Re: [Zope] Versioned connectors from ZODB

2005-07-12 Thread Etienne Labuschagne
Tim,

> > . . . Versions solves this for
> > me.
> 
> Maybe like death would solve my problem with overdue taxes .

I did get the versioned connections to work (so far), BUT, I will
definately take your word on it and seek another solution :)

>   Like, e.g., in the ZODB 3.2 line,
> 
> otherdb = ZODB.DB(storage, cache_size=100, pool_size=2)
> 
> Then connections obtained via otherdb.open() will hang if two threads
> already have connections from `otherdb` (that's the effect of
> `pool_size`), and will have ZODB memory caches that strive to keep no
> more than 100 objects in memory across transaction boundaries (the
> effect of `cache_size`).
> 

to double check:

otherdb = ZODB.DB(existingdb._storage, cache_size=100, pool_size=2)

is ok?  It seems that you can create more than one DB instance that
shares one storage object.

I hit upon the idea of creating another DB instance and sharing the
storage object myself yesterday, but wasn't sure what the
repurcussions will be.  Your post answers most of my questions.

 I have one left, though:  if I do decide to share the storage object
(and not go ZEO for whatever reason), will the caches between the two
DB objects not get out of sync?  In other words, will one DB object
know to invalidate objects in it's caches should that object be
changed through another DB instance?  I know ZEO does this for you,
but I'd like to know what the case would be for two DBs in one
process.

My other option is to create the connections "by hand" (that way I can
control the cache size easily) and keep my own little pool of
connections with a modified close method that does not put my
connections back into the "normal" pool.  But I'm afraid I may end up
with a new can of worms that way.

> This answer assumes you're using ZODB directly.  I don't know details
> of how to spell it from within a Zope application (if that's what you
> need -- unsure).

I use the ZODB directly, but from within Zope.  The connections are
used in long-running processes that are not nescesarily
browser-triggered.  Some of them are scheduled events that are started
up in their own thread.  From there the need to get new connections to
the ZODB.  I have quite a bit of experience working safely with
multiple threads and the ZODB, so I'm sure I have that part right.  My
problem had more to do with "cache contamination" and reserving
"special connections" for specific processes.

Thanks for the reply
Etienne
___
Zope maillist  -  Zope@zope.org
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
**   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
(Related lists -
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )


Re: [Zope] Versioned connectors from ZODB

2005-07-11 Thread Tim Peters
[Etienne Labuschagne]
> ...
> I really need a "temporary" connection that I can discard.  This
> connection can have a much smaller cache than the normal connections
> as it makes very little difference in the speed of data loading.
> Second prize is a connection that will only be used by a specific
> process and never used for other processes.  Versions solves this for
> me.

Maybe like death would solve my problem with overdue taxes .

Connection pools are associated with DB instances, so if you want
connections with different characteristics, create another DB
instance.  Like, e.g., in the ZODB 3.2 line,

otherdb = ZODB.DB(storage, cache_size=100, pool_size=2)

Then connections obtained via otherdb.open() will hang if two threads
already have connections from `otherdb` (that's the effect of
`pool_size`), and will have ZODB memory caches that strive to keep no
more than 100 objects in memory across transaction boundaries (the
effect of `cache_size`).

This is easiest if you're using ZEO (ClientStorage), because doing
otherdb.close() also calls close() on the DB's storage.   If you,
e.g., share a FileStorage directly across multiple DBs, closing any
one of the DBs will close the FileStorage across all the DBs using
that FileStorage.  ZEO makes it easy to open multiple ClientStorage's
"on top of" of a single FileStorage, which can be closed
independently.  If you never close otherdb, this isn't an issue.

This answer assumes you're using ZODB directly.  I don't know details
of how to spell it from within a Zope application (if that's what you
need -- unsure).
___
Zope maillist  -  Zope@zope.org
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
**   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
(Related lists -
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )


Re: [Zope] Versioned connectors from ZODB

2005-07-11 Thread Etienne Labuschagne
On 7/11/05, Florent Guillaume <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ZODB versions are deprecated, unsupported, buggy and hard to use. Don't
> use them.
> 
> Florent

And as I understand, so are temporary connections too.  That leaves me
with getting a "normal" ZODB connection from the pool which I don't
want to do.

I really need a "temporary" connection that I can discard.  This
connection can have a much smaller cache than the normal connections
as it makes very little difference in the speed of data loading. 
Second prize is a connection that will only be used by a specific
process and never used for other processes.  Versions solves this for
me.

I can check out a connection and keep it aside only for data loading. 
But this means that I waste precious memory on a connection that does
not really need to cache the amount of objects that the other
connections should.  In my case, this translates to using 1GB of RAM
on one connection that gets used once a day.

Please believe me that I really need a "special" connection.  For
those who really want to know why, below is an attempt at an
explanation why:

In the application that I have written, I want to be able to get
connections that are not part of the normal connection pool.  Once my
process is finished, I can store these connections for later use, or
discard them.  Currently my application uses the normal connections in
the pool.  The problem is that this process "contaminates" the cache
of the connections with objects that are not used in "normal" client
application use (I use a thick client).  This means that the client
applications are extremely slow the next day and that it takes a long
time before the cache contains the often used objects again.

>From there the reason why I DON'T want to use the connections for my
once a day data loading process.

My ZODB contains about 700`000 objects.  A connection caches about
60`000 objects to give satisfactory client speed.  To start up the
client before the cache is initialized, takes about 5 minutes.  Once
the cache is populated, it takes a client seconds to start up.  Data
loading invalidates all of this, but is worse than a "clean" cache in
that it takes long for the "new" objects in the cache to be flushed
and replaced by the often used objects again.  Data loading does not
need such a big cache since it mostly loads data into the ZODB. 
Unfortunately, the loaded objects also end up in the cache.

Why do I need so many objects in the cache?  Some searches cannot be
done with a mere ZCatalog search and have to run through a subset of
all the objects.  These tend to fit nicely in the cache.
___
Zope maillist  -  Zope@zope.org
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
**   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
(Related lists -
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )


Re: [Zope] Versioned connectors from ZODB

2005-07-11 Thread Florent Guillaume

Please stay on the list.

On 11 Jul 2005, at 16:19, Mark Barratt wrote:

Florent Guillaume wrote:
ZODB versions are deprecated, unsupported, buggy and hard to use.  
Don't

use them.


Understood. Alternative mechanisms which achieve the same object?


Well that depends on your objective, and you haven't told us what you  
want to do from a functional point of view.


Florent

--
Florent Guillaume, Nuxeo (Paris, France)   CTO, Director of R&D
+33 1 40 33 71 59   http://nuxeo.com   [EMAIL PROTECTED]


___
Zope maillist  -  Zope@zope.org
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
**   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
(Related lists - 
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce

http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )


Re: [Zope] Versioned connectors from ZODB

2005-07-11 Thread Florent Guillaume
ZODB versions are deprecated, unsupported, buggy and hard to use. Don't
use them.

Florent

Etienne Labuschagne  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If I get a versioned connection from the ZODB:
> 
> conn = Zope.DB.open(version="myVersion")
> root = conn.root()
> app = root['Application']
> 
> # do some stuff
> 
> get_transaction().commit()
> conn.close()
> 
> Are the changes now in a version?  How do I get those changes rolled
> into the "trunk" version of the ZODB?  I guess all objects changed in
> the version will now be "locked" to that version until I apply the
> version changes to the trunk?


-- 
Florent Guillaume, Nuxeo (Paris, France)   CTO, Director of R&D
+33 1 40 33 71 59   http://nuxeo.com   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
___
Zope maillist  -  Zope@zope.org
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope
**   No cross posts or HTML encoding!  **
(Related lists - 
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce
 http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )