[development] Drupal performance patches: call for action

[Larry Garfield]

That's the main issue, yes.  The master/slave split is not 1:1 with 
select/[insert|update|delete].  You have to be able to manually control 
whether a select query is "slave safe", which means an API change of one sort 
or another.  A separate function or a flag are the two options.

I'm a decidedly not politically correct person myself, but I'm not a big fan 
of "slave" either.  It is, however, the accurate technical term and I haven't 
come up with a better name yet.

Dries: Sorry to be picky, but did you mean "A period" or "option 1" (A for 
now, B for Drupal 7)? :-)  I really don't like the idea of duplicating every 
query function long-term (meaning every alternate target or additional query 
variant multiples the number of functions we need), although I'm amenable to 
doing so for just one version.  With an all-array structure the clumsy 
argument handling code disappears anyway.

On Wednesday 01 August 2007, mark burdett wrote:
> For functions like node_load, store_transaction_load (ecommerce
> module), etc -- there are times that you load an object and need the
> precise data that was just submitted. and other times you do not.
>
> If these types of functions are using the slave queries then I guess
> it has to be documented that accurate data just isn't available?
> Unless, there were some parameter to pass in when you need to use the
> master.
>
> --mark
>
> On 8/1/07, andrew morton <drewish at katherinehouse.com> wrote:
> > Since d.o is having a fit right now I'll point to the google cache'd
> > version of the issue:
> > http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:QZEkIeazljEJ:drupal.org/node/147160+h
> >ttp://drupal.org/node/147160
> >
> > As long as it is I'd suggest reading through that, David Strauss
> > pretty much gave a lecture and took notes for us ;)
> >
> > On 8/1/07, Derek Wright <drupal at dwwright.net> wrote:
> > > On Aug 1, 2007, at 3:50 PM, andrew morton wrote:
> > > > I'd prefer to use db_query_slave(). It makes it simple to direct safe
> > > > queries to the slave with a minimum of changes.
> > >
> > > <politically_correct type="proud">
> > >
> > > Am I the only one who recoils at the usage of the word "slave" for
> > > this?  Do we really have to let that word get all the way into the
> > > Drupal core API itself? :(  While I'm sure some of the people on this
> > > list would think it's funny, no one in their right mind would call
> > > this "db_query_bitch()", either, even though to some, it'd have
> > > basically the same meaning.  *sigh*
> > >
> > > </politically_correct>
> >
> > In #60 Crell also expresses some reservations about the naming.
> > Personally I don't think it's a big deal but maybe that's because I
> > grew up setting master/slave jumpers on IDE drives.
> >
> > > <idea type="crazy">
> > >
> > > Can't we just parse the query and see if it contains any UPDATE or
> > > INSERT clauses? ;)  Why do we need to change the API at all?
> > >
> > > </idea>
> > >
> > > I suppose the problem is queries that SELECT to check a value and
> > > then update it, and you'd want to do both of those on the primary
> > > DB.  That's why we either need transaction awareness, or we need the
> > > query author to specify what they need explicitly.  Is that the
> > > issue?
> >
> > Yeah, in #3 David Strauss discusses the problems with auto detection,
> > basically there's some lag between when you write something and when
> > it's propagated to the slave. If it's important that the query reflect
> > recent changes you need to query the master. When you don't care, you
> > can query a slave.
> >
> > andrew


-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

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