[Koha-devel] Repetitious behavior repeatedly

[Andrew Arensburger]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2002 at 10:57:18AM +0200, paul POULAIN wrote:
> Andrew Arensburger wrote:
> >	So if C4::Config is well received, I'll also fix C4Connect to
> >cache the database handle and return the same one each time, if it
> >can.
> >	Finally, a number of scripts need to know which branches or
> >item types exist. But I'll venture that after the initial setup,
> >neither of these changes more than once every few months. It seems
> >rather silly to have a script query the database for these values,
> >when they could be cached locally.
> >	Hence, it would make sense to save this information in a Perl
> >module on the web server, so that scripts don't have to query the
> >database each time. And run a cron job once an hour to regenerate this
> >module from the information in the database.
> >	Thoughts? Is this sensible, or am I full of it?
> >
> I agree. And I can add another table : the "stopword", which is HEAVILY 
> used when you add a marc record.
> Another idea :
> would it be possible to change $dbh to transform it in a "koha param 
> object container" having :
> * the db handle
> * /etc/koha.conf parameters
> * some "static" tables
> the best would be to be still able to have $dbh->prepare or $dbh->do, 
> but to add $dbh->param() to get koha parameter of $dbh->stopwords to get 
> hash or array of stopwords...
> 
> If we could, then we hadn't to modify all koha API.

	If I understand correctly, you're suggesting a "Context"
object, which contains all of the information that you need to perform
some operation. In addition to what you've listed above, I'd throw in
the user's preferences (theme, home branch, printer, etc.), and
perhaps the desired output type (HTML, CSV, curses, etc.).
	This has esthetic appeal, but I wonder if it's overkill. I
believe that the typical script reads /etc/koha.conf, opens a handle
to the database, then uses those values until it exits. It doesn't (or
shouldn't) open any new database handles, or run a sub-query with a
different configuration, or anything like that. That is, normally
there will only be one Context object, and it will remain unchanged
throughout the lifetime of the script. So why not just use a few
global variables (or global access methods)?

	The only exception I can think of is in the case of a library
system where the libraries are almost unified, but some are
semi-independent for political or historical reasons.
	For example: when you search the umd.edu catalog, you get the
option of searching either the Law Library catalog, or all other
libraries at UMD. I don't know why this is so, but it appears that the
Law department is at least somewhat separate from the other libraries.
In Koha terms, you would do almost everything through koha.umd.edu
(including authentication, list of branches, etc), except for Law
catalog searches, which would go through koha.law.umd.edu. In this
case, you might want one Context object for user login, and another
for searching the Law library.
	How common is this sort of situation? Do we even want to worry
about it? Or is there a better way to handle this sort of thing?

	If I seem to be arguing against myself, above, it's simply
because I'm not sure what the Right Answer is.

-- 
Andrew Arensburger                      This message *does* represent the
arensb at ooblick.com                      views of ooblick.com
"If you only have a nail, you tend to see every hammer as a problem."
					-- Larry Wall