---
tags: [Python, Buzhug, Database, Locks]
slug: locking-buzhug
title: Locking Buzhug
date: "2012-02-07T00:00:00+01:00"
---

I have recently decided to work with [Buzhug] on a project. As far as I can tell,
it has proven efficient, fast, easy to use and to maintain. However, I ran into
a few gotchas.

[Buzhug]: http://buzhug.sourceforge.net

Simple solutions are often the best
===================================

I came to use Buzhug for the following requirements:

- I needed a single table
- I did not want to add additional dependencies to the project
- The size of the table will average 5K entries (without having more than
  10k entries in peaks)

And an additional (personal) one:

- I did not want to bother with SQL. Really not. no way!

That left me one option: pure-python embedded database.

After having considered a few libraries, I have been seduced by the way Buzhug
interface is close to manipulating python objects. And the benchmarks seemed
to show that it is performant enough for this project.

After a quick prototyping (1 day), the choice was done.

Then came a few weeks of development and the first stress tests...


And the real world came back fast
=================================


A few times a day, the application backed by this database is intensely used:

- It can be run up to 50 times simultaneously in separate python process
- Each run makes a read and a write/delete operation

This causes a race condition on the files used to store data, and concurent
writes corrupts database.

Using `buzhug.TS_Base` instead of `buzhug.Base` did not solve anything,
as the problem is not thread, but processes. What I need is a system-wide
cross-process lock.


Here is the answer
==================

First step was to find how to implement a cross-process, system-wide lock.
As it only has to work on Linux, the
[Lock class given by Chris from
Vmfarms](http://blog.vmfarms.com/2011/03/cross-process-locking-and.html) fits
perfectly. Here is a version slightly modified to make it a context manager :


{{< highlight python >}}
import fcntl

class PsLock:
    """
    Taken from:
    http://blog.vmfarms.com/2011/03/cross-process-locking-and.html
    """
    def __init__(self, filename):
        self.filename = filename
        self.handle = open(filename, 'w')

    # Bitwise OR fcntl.LOCK_NB if you need a non-blocking lock
    def acquire(self):
        fcntl.flock(self.handle, fcntl.LOCK_EX)

    def release(self):
        fcntl.flock(self.handle, fcntl.LOCK_UN)

    def __del__(self):
        self.handle.close()

    def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
        if exc_type is None:
            pass
        self.release()

    def __enter__(self):
        self.acquire()
{{< /highlight >}}

The second step is to define a new class that inheritates from `buzhug.Base`
that uses `PsLock` (inspired by `TS_Base`):


{{< highlight python >}}
import buzhug

_lock = PsLock("/tmp/buzhug.lck")

class PS_Base(buzhug.Base):

    def create(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.create(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def open(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.open(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def close(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.close(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def destroy(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.destroy(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def set_default(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.set_default(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def insert(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.insert(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def update(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.update(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def delete(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.delete(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def cleanup(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.cleanup(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def commit(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.commit(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def add_field(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.add_field(self,*args,**kw)
        return res

    def drop_field(self,*args,**kw):
        with _lock:
            res = buzhug.Base.drop_field(self,*args,**kw)
        return res
{{< /highlight >}}

Now I just use

{{< highlight python >}}
    database = PS_Base( ... )
{{< /highlight >}}


And all the errors have vanished.