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

nolan(at)celery(dot)tssi(dot)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