Suggestions on mechanism or existing code - maintain persistence of file download history

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 8:36 PM R.Wieser <address at not.available> wrote:
>
> Chris,
>
> > Uhh....
> >
> > Proper databases don't HAVE non-atomic operations. That's kinda their job.
>
> Uhh...  yes, /singular/ operations are considered to be atomic.  A series of
> operations /ment/ to be executed as a single one on the other hand aren't.

That's what transactions are for. If you have a series of operations
meant to be executed as an atomic operation, you begin a transaction,
do the operations, and then commit. Again, that is the *job* of the
database.

> >> Also think of the old adagio: "I had a problem,
>
> I guess that that went right over your head. :-)    /You/ might know exactly
> what should and shouldn't be done, what makes you think the OP currently
> does ?
>
> > But that's still not corrupting the database.
>
> Depending on your definition of corruption.  An unreadable file is often
> described as being corrupt, though the same can be said of a database in an
> inconsistent state.
>

If the OP doesn't know how to use a database, that doesn't change my
recommendations regarding the use of a database. I don't understand
why you're denigrating databases, when basically the only way to mess
up transactional integrity is to fail to use them properly, which is
something easily learned. The downside of a database is that it might
be overkill, but it's safe against corruption.

ChrisA