multi-user database (file based) - or no database at all?
lazarus / 16-Databases

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ArminLinder · 2016-12-29 21:58

Hi all,

this question has, in different forms, been asked alot, but I found no
definitive answer, so I dare to ask again:

- is there any component available to maintain records in a small
database (<10.000 records, 1 data table, 2-3 indexes for fast
searches), if there is absolutely no way to use anything else than
plain old file system files stored on a NAS or any other network based
file system?

Design specs are as follows:
- storage is any plain file system, absolutely no server service can
be installed
- multiple users, multiple computers, and multiple different users
hosted on one computer (Terminal-services based) in any mixture
- no specific installation of components required
- may be commercial, but only if 1 developer license pays for
unlimited installations of the final product
- open source for ease of debugging/tracking
- may be Windows only (XP ... W10)
- very infrequent inserts/updates/queries of records (10 a day or so)
- reasonable response times in LAN environments

Any product/component anyone can suggest? Links to tutorials and
sample code welcome so I try it out before settling on one.

Alternative approach:
Looking at the specs, especially at the low number of records and the
very infrequent expected database accesses I am seriously thinking
about not to use a database at all, but store each individual record
in a file, and program some in-memory search tables into the clients
to speed up searches.

Any thoughts?

Thx, Armin.

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JD · 2016-12-29 22:01

Firebird with SQLdb will fit the bill easily. It is very low
maintainance & very fast on LAN.

See http://wiki.freepascal.org/SQLdb_Tutorial0 and
http://wiki.freepascal.org/SQLdb_Programming_Reference

JD

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LacaK · 2016-12-30 08:27

With bit playing you can use also SQLite www.sqlite.org (one DLL and
one database file which holds all tables) for multiuser environments.
It depends how frequent are reads and updates

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Thaddy · 2016-12-30 09:30

Quote from: LacaK on December 30, 2016, 09:27:53 amWith bit playing
you can use also SQLite www.sqlite.org (one DLL and one database file
which holds all tables)

Not even that. You can statically link sqlite, which, in this case,
may be an optimal solution.
The mormot guys showed us how to do that in a proper, but not the
only, way.

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JD · 2016-12-30 10:44

Quote from: LacaK on December 30, 2016, 09:27:53 amWith bit playing
you can use also SQLite www.sqlite.org (one DLL and one database file
which holds all tables) for multiuser environments. It depends how
frequent are reads and updates

Multiuser SQLite
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1856313/simple-multi-user-
database-solution

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5102027/can-sqlite-support-
multiple-user