[Python-Dev] Ext4 data loss

[Guido van Rossum]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de> wrote:
> Multiple blogs and news sites are swamped with a discussion about ext4
> and KDE 4.0. Theodore Ts'o - the developer of ext4 - explains the issue
> at
> https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/317781/comments/54.
>
>
> Python's file type doesn't use fsync() and be the victim of the very
> same issue, too. Should we do anything about it?

If I understand the post properly, it's up to the app to call fsync(),
and it's only necessary when you're doing one of the rename dances, or
updating a file in place. Basically, as he explains, fsync() is a very
heavyweight operation; I'm against calling it by default anywhere.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)