Hi,

originally posted in asp xml area ...but noticed it was v slow to resceve response:-)

need some advise on the best approach to take and also if any one knows of a any resouce on this subject that exists online?

When a banner displays on my site, the banner display count is recorded in an xml file and the xml file is saved each time

follwing error occures occasionally:
msxml3.dll error '80070020'
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
/globalincludes/incBanner.inc, line 291


my questions:
[1] is it better to use a sql server database then xml for recording such data? e.g banner display count could amount to as much as 10000 in a day.

[2] This continuous and frequent saving of the xml file due to client activity - am i using xml for an inappropriate purpose? I had initially done this to reduce the hits on our sql server.

looking forward any valuable replies.


ak

__________________
ak

Hi there,

For 10,000 writes a day, I would go for the database solution. A database is designed for a multi-user scenario, while, as you found out, writing to an XML file may get you into concurrency problems.

Another approach is to cache the data in in-memory variables, and write them every 10 or 100 hits. This approach would only work if the exact count isn't very important. That is, missing a few counts shouldn't be a problem in that scenario. If, for instance, the server reboots, you loose the number of hits currently held in memory.

Cheers,

Imar


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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.

Imar Spaanjaars
Thanks for your help. I have taken your advice to look into the alternatives and decided to use application variables, hope this causes no problems.

Regards
ak

ak

Hi there,

Well, it *can* cause problems when your server or IIS restarts (something that happens more frequent than you'd expect).

Check out this article for more information and for a database solution to save your variables: http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com/QuickDocID.aspx?QUICKDOC=165

Cheers,

Imar


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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.