Blobs (was Re: Windows filepro splash screen)

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting Fairlight (Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:55:12 -0400):
[...]
> Apparently at least a few customers know of some issues.  Maybe I should
> get the specifics from my client and make them public.  That would be
> rather embarrassing, especially if they're accurate and legitimate issues
> that haven't been addressed.

Unless, of course, they were never reported, as appears to be quite common.

> Actually, I can already say there are known issues--use of blobfix is still
> occasionally necessary as recently as three or so months ago.  A client had
> to use it with either 5.0.14 or 5.6 (probably 5.6 by that point).  I've
> been told that the reason the same routines in blobfix aren't used in the
> real product is because they're slower and less efficient.

Not quite.  The routines used by blobfix are loaded with "sanity checks" at
every step along the way.  If an "insane" value appears, such as a negative
offset, or a block number past EOF, it stops reading that particular object.

Could the routines used by filePro do the same thing?  Yes, of course.  But,
that would obviously slow things down, as you mentioned.  Also, what should
filePro do at runtime if it came across such corruption?  Finally, note that
the only likely benefit the user would see is that filePro wouldn't crash
with a SEGV or the like should it hit a corrupt BLOB.

> Now...if there
> are -no- known issues, why is there a blobfix program at all?

Why is there an fsck?

> "Fix" implies "issues" in my book, and probably most people's.

I guess it also depends on your definition of "known issue".  If the issue
is "they have 50 people banging away at it 12 hours a day, 6 days a week,
and after a couple of weeks they notice corruption in the memos", I suppose
you could say there are "known issues".  Of course, the issue is probably
best described as "some people, with some files, doing some sequence of
events, will, after some time, have a problem somewhere in the blob file".
The problem is in getting further details.

-- 
KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
http://www.hvcomputer.com
http://www.fileProPlus.com