Re: Humor me: Postgresql vs. MySql (esp. licensing)

nolan@celery.tssi.com wrote:

>>One of my friend lost data with mysql yesterday.. The machine was taken down for 
>>disk upgrade and mysql apperantly did not commit the last insert.. OK he was 
>>using myisam but still..:-)
> 
> 
> It sounds like that is more a problem with improper operating protocols
> than with the underlying database.  

No. Problem is machine was shutdown with shutdown -h. It sends sigterm to 
everybody. A good process would flsuh the buffers to disk before finishing. 
Mysql didn't on that occasion.

Transactions or not, this behaviour is unacceptable for any serious app.

> 
> Would PG know enough to do a commit regardless of how the database was 
> shut down?  A second question is whether doing a commit is what the user 
> or application would always want to have happen, as it could result in a 
> half-completed transaction.

Do a shutdown -h on a live database machine with pg. It will gracefully shut 
itself down.

  Shridhar