[Tracker] HitsAdded, HitsRemoved and HitsModified for Xesam



Pre note: 

This is about the Xesam support being done (since this week) in the
indexer-split.

About:

Xesam requires notifying live searches about changes that affect them.
We plan to implement this with a "events" table that journals all
creates, deletes and updates that the indexer causes.

Periodically we will handle and then flush the items in that events
table.

I made a cracktasty diagram that contains the from-a-high-distance
abstract proposal that we have in mind for this.


This is pseudo code that illustrates the periodic handler:

bool periodic_handler (...) 

{

  lock indexer
  update eventstable set beinghandled=1 where 1=1 (all items)
  unlock indexer

  foreach query in all livequeries
     added, modified, removed = query.execute-on (eventstable)
     query.emit_added (added)
     query.emit_removed (removed)
     query.emit_modified (modified)
  done

  lock indexer
  delete from eventstable where beinghandled = 1
  unlock indexer

  return (!stopping)

}


Here's a piece of IRC log between me and jamiecc about the proposal:

pvanhoof ping jamiemcc 
pvanhoof same thing
pvanhoof I'll make a pdf
jamiemcc oh ok
pvanhoof Sending
pvanhoof ok
pvanhoof so
pvanhoof it's about the hitsadded, hitsremoved and hitsmodified signals for xesam
pvanhoof What we have in mind is using a "events" table that is a journal for all creates, deletes and updates
pvanhoof Periodically we will flush that table, each create (insert), update and each delete we add a record 
in that table
pvanhoof We'll make sure the table is queryable in a similar fashion as how the Xesam query will execute
pvanhoof In the periodical handler we'll for each live search check whether it got affected by the items in 
the events table
pvanhoof In pseudo, the handler:
jamiemcc sounds feasible
pvanhoof gboolean periodic_handler (void data) {
pvanhoof   lock indexer
pvanhoof   update eventstable set beinghandled=1 where 1=1 (all items)
pvanhoof   unlock indexer
pvanhoof   foreach query in all live queries
pvanhoof      added, modified, removed = query.execute-on (eventstable)
pvanhoof      query.emit_added (added)
pvanhoof      query.emit_removed (removed)
pvanhoof      query.emit_modified (modified)
pvanhoof   done
pvanhoof   lock indexer
pvanhoof   delete from eventstable where beinghandled = 1
pvanhoof   unlock indexer
pvanhoof }
pvanhoof I've send you a diagram that you can look at as if it's a state-activity one, a ERD and a class 
diagram :) now how cool is that?? :)
pvanhoof it's just three columns, although the ERD is quite simplistic of course
jamiemcc yeah just go tit
* fritschy (~fritschy 84 19 173 195) has left #tracker
pvanhoof so, the current idea is to adapt those stored procedures into transactions that will also add this 
record to the "events" table
* fritschy (~fritschy 84 19 173 195) has joined #tracker
pvanhoof Which might not be sufficient, and we kinda lack the in-depth know-how of all the db handling of 
tracker
pvanhoof So that's a first issue we want to discuss with you
pvanhoof The other is stopping the indexing, restarting it (locking it, in the pseudo code): what you think 
about that
jamiemcc ok I will need to think about it - I iwll probably reply later tonight and we can discuss tomorrow
pvanhoof I adapted my initial proposal to have two short critical sections rather than letting the entire 
periodic handler be one critical section
pvanhoof that way the lock is smaller
jamiemcc the indexer will be seaparte process so will need to be locked via dbus signals
pvanhoof by just adding a column to the events table
pvanhoof yes but I guess we want any such locking to be short
jamiemcc well yes 
pvanhoof then once the items that are to be handled are identified, we for each live-search check whether the 
live-search is affected
pvanhoof and we perform the necessary hitsadded, hitsremoved and hitsmodified signals if needed
pvanhoof if all is done, we simply purge the handled items from the events table
jamiemcc the query results will be store din temp tables
pvanhoof which is the second location where we want the indexer to be locked-out
jamiemcc remember a query may be a cursor so wont include entire result set
pvanhoof No okay, but that's something the check needs to worry about 
pvanhoof so ottela is working on a query for the live-search
jamiemcc ok cool
pvanhoof and if we only want to update if the client has the affected item visible, due to cursor-usage
pvanhoof then i guess we'll somehow need to get that info into trackerd
jamiemcc any reason we dont store whats change din memory rather than sqlite table?
pvanhoof oh, that's abstract right now
jamiemcc o
jamiemcc ok
pvanhoof "tracker's event table" can also be a hashtable for me ..
jamiemcc yeah fine
pvanhoof implementation detail
pvanhoof since it doesn't need to be persistent ...
pvanhoof difference is that either we use a memory table and still a transaction for the three stored 
procedures
pvanhoof or we adapt code
jamiemcc prefer hashtable as amount of data will be small
jamiemcc can even be a list
pvanhoof ok, your comments/ideas on this would of course be very useful btw
jamiemcc yeah I will think about it more tonight and get back to you
pvanhoof sounds great
pvanhoof I'll make a mail about this to the mailing list? or I await your ideas tomorrow?
pvanhoof I'll just wait for now
jamiemcc you cna mail if you like
jamiemcc I will reply to it


-- 
Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://pvanhoof.be/blog
http://codeminded.be



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