How can I ensure atomic writes to the filesystem for multiple operations?

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Asked By CleverSocks92 On

I'm trying to save my program's state to the filesystem, but I need to perform several operations like writing to one file and creating another. I want to avoid situations where one operation succeeds while another fails, leaving my program in a difficult-to-recover state. Is there a method or architecture that can guarantee either all operations succeed or none do? I'm particularly interested in solutions for Rust, but I'm open to ideas from other languages. Is this a problem in computer science that's unsolvable?

1 Answer

Answered By TechieTurtle77 On

One way to handle this is by using an embedded database like SQLite. With SQLite, you can start a transaction, so either all the changes go through, or none of them do. If an error occurs, the system rolls back to the previous state, preventing half-written data. Alternatively, you could write to a temporary file, then rename it to a permanent file only if all operations succeed. This way, your filesystem is always stable.

CuriousCoder88 -

I see the merit in using SQLite, but I think it might complicate things. The temp file method seems promising, but I'm working with several files—thanks for the suggestion!

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