[MUD-Dev] Re: DBMS in MU*'s

[Ross Nicoll]

Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai wrote in a Mail about "[MUD-Dev] DBMS in MU*'s":

 > Are there people on this list that have actually tried this? Either the
 > relational/referntial or the OO DBMS.

 > I would gladly hear about your opinions and experiences with a DBMS
 > alongside the MU*.
I'm not too good with the proper terms for stuff, but I think you're
suggesting something similar to what we have, and even if not, it may interest
you:

Every single bit of data in the database has a chunk ID and length, which
are tacked onto the front of it. Some chunks (room, object, player, etc)
contain subchunks, which can contain subchunks, which...

The system makes no assumption about the order of the data, or what data
will be present (apart from that all room data chunks will be within
the room chunk they are related to, for instance), and so the database
is easily expandable, and very reliable.

I once swapped two 128k chunks of the database; the server threw up three
errors on the actual database load, and although some of the error checking
isn't complete, and so it had to give up, the final version would have booted
up fine with just a few pieces of data lost...
  _   __  __   __
 /_) / / (__  (__
/\  /_/   __)   /
_______________/

... "...word came down from on high that the group's members are to gather two
...  of  everything and put them on the ARC before the forty days and forty
...  nights of  rain come and wipe out the current systems and standards."
... ---James P. Roynan
... in LAN Computing, July 1991