Halloween protection in a multi-version database system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9116943-B2
Application number	US-201414272074-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 7, 2014
Priority date	Oct 29, 2010
Publication date	Aug 25, 2015
Grant date	Aug 25, 2015

Abstract

Mitigating problems related to the Halloween problem including where update operations potentially allow the record to be visited more than once during the operation. A method includes accessing an instance of a data store operation statement. The instance of the data store operation statement is executed causing an update or delete to an old version of data store record or creation of a data store record resulting in a new version of the data store record in the case of an update or creation of a data store record and a deleted version of the data store record in the case of a delete in the data store. The instance of the data store operation statement is correlated with the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. In a computing environment, a method of mitigating problems related to a Halloween problem including where update operations potentially allow a record to be visited more than once during an operation, the method comprising:
accessing an instance of a data store operation statement;
executing the instance of the data store operation statement causing an update or delete to an old version of a data store record or creation of a data store record resulting in a new version of the data store record in the case of an update or creation of a data store record or a deleted version of the data store record in the case of a delete in a data store; and
correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record, wherein correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record prevents the instance of the data store operation statement from reading the new version of the data store record so as to prevent the instance of a data store operation statement from accessing its own changes while not preventing the instance of the data store operation statement from accessing a state of the data store as it existed before the data store operation statement started executing.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record comprises storing the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record in a list associated with a current transaction that includes records created by the instance of the data store operation statement within the context of the current transaction.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising when performing a read operation, checking the list of records associated with the current transaction to determine if the record was created by the instance of the data store operation statement and should be unreadable or whether the record previously existed and should be readable.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising when performing a read operation, checking the list of records associated with the current transaction to determine if the record was deleted by the instance of the data store operation statement and should be readable or whether the record previously existed and should be unreadable.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a same data store operation statement attempting to read the new version of the data store record and as a result of correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record, preventing the data store operation statement from reading the new version of the data store record.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a same data store operation statement attempting to read the deleted version of the data store record and as a result of correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the deleted version of the data store record, allowing the data store operation statement to read the deleted version of the data store record.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a different data store operation statement attempting to read the new version of the data store record and as a result of correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record, allowing the different data store operation statement to read the new version of the data store record.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a different data store operation statement attempting to read the deleted version of the data store record and as a result of correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the deleted version of the data store record, preventing the different data store operation statement from reading the deleted version of the data store record.

9. In a computing environment, a computer readable storage device comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause one or more processors to perform functions for mitigating problems related to a Halloween problem including where update operations potentially allow a record to be visited more than once during an operation, the functions comprising:
accessing an instance of a data store operation statement;
executing the instance of the data store operation statement causing an update or delete to an old version of a data store record or creation of a data store record resulting in a new version of the data store record in the case of an update or creation of a data store record or a deleted version of the data store record in the case of a delete in a data store; and
correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record, wherein correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record prevents the instance of the data store operation statement from reading the new version of the data store record so as to prevent the instance of a data store operation statement from accessing its own changes while not preventing the instance of the data store operation statement from accessing a state of the data store as it existed before the data store operation statement started executing.

10. The computer readable storage device of claim 9 , wherein said correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record comprises storing the new version of the data store record or the deleted version of the data store record in a list associated with a current transaction that includes records created by the instance of the data store operation statement within the context of the current transaction.

11. The computer readable storage device of claim 10 , further comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause when performing a read operation, checking the list of records associated with the current transaction to determine if the record was created by the instance of the data store operation statement and should be unreadable or whether the record previously existed and should be readable.

12. The computer readable storage device of claim 10 , further comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause when performing a read operation, checking the list of records associated with the current transaction to determine if the record was deleted by the instance of the data store operation statement and should be readable or whether the record previously existed and should be unreadable.

13. The computer readable storage device of claim 9 , further comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the same data store operation statement to attempt to read the new version of the data store record and as a result of correlating the instance of the data store operation statement with the new version of the data store record, preventing the data store operation statement from reading the new version of the data store record.

14. The computer readable storage device of claim 9 , further comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the same data store operation statement to attempt to read the deleted version of the data store record and as a result of corre

Assignees

• Microsoft Corp
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Freedman Craig Steven
• Cunningham Conor John

Classifications

• G06F17/30345

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30371 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/3023

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30303

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/1873 Primary

  Versioning file systems, temporal file systems, e.g. file system supporting different historic versions of files · CPC title