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Re: Standard log file format - binary version?
I think that there are two separate issues. First we need to establish a base
interchange format which will permit exchange of data between different
platforms, second we need to determine efficient datastructures for gathering
data.
A major problem with binary data formats is that the optimum representation is
highly dependent on the particular platform. If I have a UNIX system and my file
system is limited to flat files I would want a very different setup to that I
would want on (say) a VMS system where there is data structure support in the
file system. I am also likely to have different requirements for parallel
machines.
The UNIX architecture is particularly limiting in that the kernel has very
limited locking capability. Performing multiple operations as an atomic
operation is very expensive. Many of the server architectures (esp. hunt group
servers) will have a very hard time of making anything other than an append
operation atomic.
The problem I see wrt standardizing a binary format is that each platform will
have a different optimal format. I don't think we can standardize anything more
than the data-structure and leave implementors to work out the optimal solution
for their particular case.
Phill
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