[squeak-dev] new VM appears not to be flushing

Eliot Miranda eliot.miranda at gmail.com
Mon Jan 13 20:55:53 UTC 2020


On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 12:53 PM Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Dave,
>
>
>> With respect to VM changes, there is very little chance that the
>> VM (FilePlugin actually) has changed recently. But is it certainly
>> possible that the compilers and runtime libraries have changed over
>> the last year or so, and it is possible that the actual runtime
>> behavior of fflush() will be different as a result. If so, I would
>> not regard that as a VM problem per se, it is really going be a
>> difference in the runtime environment.
>>
>
> I do hope you're right, but when you say, the "runtime environment", do
> you mean statically-linked stuff?   Because, in terms of the dynamic
> linkages, the test is running both times in the same environment.  If I use
> the old VM, it works.  If I use the new VM, I have to change #flush or it
> won't work.
>

Can you provide the version info for both please?


>
>  - Chris
>
>
>>
>> As a point of comparison, I find that my CommandShell has accumulated
>> a few bugs over the years as a result of differences in the runtime
>> environments on Linux and other Unix systems. Some of these I have
>> addressed, and some I haven't. But it is not a defect in the VM, more
>> likely it is some poor assumptions in my original implementation that
>> became visible as the runtime C library changed.
>>
>> HTH,
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 01:15:15AM +0100, Levente Uzonyi wrote:
>> > Hi Chris,
>> >
>> > Do you expect #flush to write the changes to disk?
>> >
>> > Levente
>> >
>> > On Sun, 12 Jan 2020, Chris Muller wrote:
>> >
>> > >Magma has been stable in 5.2 for a long time under an older VM, all
>> tests
>> > >pass.?? But by changing ONLY the VM (not the image) to the new
>> > >release-candidate, it fails the forward-recovery test.?? This test
>> tests
>> > >the scenario of a
>> > >server failure during mid-write.?? Unless I change
>> > >StandardFileStream>>#flush as in Files-cmm.182,??the recovery data
>> which
>> > >Magma relies on #flush to ensure is preserved is, in fact, not
>> > >preserved.?? It appears to be a breakage
>> > >of the contract which causes the test to fail.?? This functionality is
>> > >important to avoid corrupting databases.
>> > >I saw a discussion on the Cuis list in which someone was asserting
>> that
>> > >flush is no longer necessary(!!), and made a vague reference to a
>> "thread
>> > >on squeak-dev" which I never found.
>> > >
>> > >I hope this is just an oversight, otherwise I'll have to rely
>> something
>> > >like Files-cmm.182, which is half the speed of the old #flush.
>> > >
>> > >Best,
>> > >?? Chris
>> > >
>> > >
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
_,,,^..^,,,_
best, Eliot
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