new thread
Not the members, but the server. I just clicked on the link to a post I made and instead got one that 80s metal posted. I know they are the same (and that I didn't make a mistake) because when I moused over them they both had the following link:
http://the-light.com/longhair/messages/139207.html
Mine was a reply to How bad does it look, 80s metal's was a reply to Maintenance trims. I see the posting times are one second apart.
Whether that will still be the case by the time you see this remains to be seen, but what a strange fault! :)
LukeB
LOL. Actually this has happened before. Basically when 2 users post a message exactly(or almost)at the same time for some reason it causes a glitch where the 2 posts get mixed up :(
I don't think this is anything Bill can't solve :)
BTW, ur title for this post really caught my eye!
Hehehehe, I wonder where my message has gone to. It wasn't anything really long winded or important so it's no bother if it can't be retrieved. :)
LukeB
The problem is that there is no command in the software that is equivalent to the simple "take a number" machine you see in just about every deli, where it's impossible for two customers to get the same number. Instead, one has to use two steps - (1) take a number and (2) add 1 to it so the next guy does not get the same number. We do those two steps very rapidly, but once in a while someone will grab their number before we can do step (2). Then they both get the same number and he who posts last wins. His message overwrites the other guy's.
If any of you programmer types can think of a workaround to this problem, I'm all ears. I've tried various tacks, and they all fall apart due to the situation that they involve multiple steps. What we need is a single "take a number and add one to it" command, but there just is none I've been able to find.
This problem has become more infrequent as web servers have become faster, but it does still sometimes occur.
Bill
Can you actually post the code which handles this or is it too long?
Let's correspond off list. Click on my pic and there's a link there you can write me at.
Bill
Bill,
What is needed is called a mutex, critical section, semaphore, or atomic operation. Putting steps 1 and 2 inside a mutex ensures that exactly one thread at a time is allowed to retrieve the number and increment the counter.
I'm not familiar with the specific software on this BBS, but the solution to this type of problem is well-known.
Ed
