Capabilities: RTF editing, Graphs, flat-file database

[Geoff Caplan]

Hi folks,

TD> I think labeling Valentina as unreliable is a bit harsh in this
TD> case.

I'm not saying it's unreliable relative to other RDBMS - just that it
is likely to be unreliable compared to a simpler data engine. I'm told
that RDBMS are one of the most demanding types to software to engineer
and make reliable, and are surely best avoided if the features are not
really required. With, say, the Sleepycat single user engine there is
much less to go wrong.

But it is worth saying in passing that the best embedded engines can
survive crashes/power-outages etc. For example Borland Interbase is
reportedly used in the Abrams battle tank. When the cannon fires, the
resulting electric pulse crashes the tank's systems. Interbase repairs
itself and is back up and running within a second of the reboot...
Impressive.


> And yet another way is to store your data as plain (or encrypted, if you
> prefer) text files on disk. Read them into RAM when the stack opens, 
> convert them to an array, and work with the array while the stack is 
> open. Then reconvert the array back to a text file and re-write to disk 
> when the stack closes. Array access is lightening fast if you know what 
> key you want, and arrays have no problem with tens of thousands of entries.

Worth a try, but I think I am going to need multiple keys, which would
complicate things... Suppose I could maintain maintain arrays for the
other keys with pointers to the main key...

------------------ 
Geoff Caplan
Vario Software Ltd
(+44) 121-515 1154