another multi-user "solution"?

[Kurt Kaufman]

> sims wrote:
>> At 10:10 PM -0700 4/25/05, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I'm not sure if this will work for you, but lately I've been using
>>> tab-delimited text for the sorts of things I used to use cards for. I
>>> maintain a one-card window for display, pouring data into the fields
>>> as needed, but the data itself is maintained as just straight text.
>>> Fast, flexible, and about as small as it can be....
>>
>> Is this usually reading from text files or using custom properties?

As I mentioned, we need to have more than one user accessing parts of 
the data concurrently, so I needed the data itself to be saved outside 
of the user-operated stacks. I also wanted some sort of backup while 
the data was being worked on.  So I decided to try multiple text files, 
one for each record.

When FirstRecord.txt is opened, a BusyFirstRecord.txt is created that 
accomplishes two tasks: all of the existing data from FirstRecord.txt 
is backed-up to BusyFirstRecord.txt, and the latter also serves as a 
temporary block to any subsequent users that try to access 
FirstRecord.txt.  After user-updated data is saved to FirstRecord.txt, 
BusyFirstRecord.txt is then deleted. If there is a problem (i.e. 
user-operated stack crashes or computer problem, etc.), then the 
original data is still available in BusyFirstRecord.txt, which can be 
easily renamed or fixed in a text editor.

This app. is simply a "Rolodex" of accounts receivable; data across 
accounts are not needed; it would be cumbersome (but possible) to do 
calculations by opening/closing all of the accounts in succession using 
the method described above.

So far I've accessed a single group of records concurrently from Mac 
and Windows XP standalones (via VPC), and the mechanism seems to work 
well.  Today I'll try it in the real world and see if I can "break" it.

Kurt