mnesia power index

[Ulf Wiger (AL/EAB)]

Ulf Wiger (AL/EAB) wrote:

>   ** Oops! The following functions don't work right!
> 
> 40> mnesia:dirty_index_first(test4,{1,name}).
> {{{"armstrong","joe"},2},[]}
> 41> mnesia:dirty_index_next(test4,{1,name},{{"armstrong","joe"},2}).
> {{{"armstrong","joe"},4},[]}
> 
>   ** They do work with old-style indexes, and should work with 
>   ** unordered indexes. I will fix this.

Now fixed. If anyone wants a patch, let me know.

Alternating next and prev on a bag table yields very
strange results - so using these functions on an unordered
index (at least when stepping back and forth) can sometimes 
cause surprises. I will not attempt to fix this.

139> mnesia:dirty_index_first(test4,{1,name}).                 
{{{"armstrong","joe"},4},
 [{test4,2,"Joe","Armstrong","the quick brown fox"},
  {test4,4,"joe","armstrong","jumps over the lazy dog"}]}
140> mnesia:dirty_index_last(test4,{1,name}).                  
{{{"wiger","ulf"},3},
 [{test4,1,"Ulf","Wiger","The Quick Brown Fox"},
  {test4,3,"ulf","wiger","JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG"}]}
141> mnesia:dirty_index_next(test4,{1,name},element(1,v(139))).
{{{"wiger","ulf"},3},
 [{test4,1,"Ulf","Wiger","The Quick Brown Fox"},
  {test4,3,"ulf","wiger","JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG"}]}
142> mnesia:dirty_index_next(test4,{1,name},element(1,v(141))).
'$end_of_table'
143> mnesia:dirty_index_prev(test4,{1,name},element(1,v(140))). 
{{{"armstrong","joe"},4},
 [{test4,2,"Joe","Armstrong","the quick brown fox"},
  {test4,4,"joe","armstrong","jumps over the lazy dog"}]}
144> mnesia:dirty_index_prev(test4,{1,name},element(1,v(143))).
'$end_of_table'


> - The index callbacks execute in the 'commit' phase, so there's
>    no possibility to abort (this will cause mnesia to dump core).
>    They simply have to work. Oh, and keep them side-effect free.

I decided to address this with a function:

mnesia_index:test_index_fun(Tab, Index, Object)

(The function returns whatever the indexing callback returns,
or exits if the callback exits.)

and also the sometimes more convenient function:

mnesia_index:test_indexes(Tab, Object) -> ok

(verifies that each index function returns a list 
of values for the given object.)

By calling this within the transaction, you should get 
a transaction abort rather than a nasty crash during 
commit. I thought I'd build this into 'rdbms' if the 
functionality actually becomes incorporated into mnesia. 
Then, it will be transparent to users of 'rdbms'.

BTW, the functions work for all index types, not just callbacks.

/Uffe