[GNC] Exiting gnucash Lock file Vol 226, Issue 57

[John Layman]

>>> Rather than using xml data files, which have always seemed odd to me <<<

There are pros and cons to substituting a RDBMS for XML.  Since GnuCash was
originally designed for an in-memory data store, the XML is it's native
persistence system.  Over time, it has been altered to substitute a SQL
database as the store, but not with a clean relational data model.

I have been using GnuCash for both  business and personal accounting since
01-Jan-2010,  Plus, I imported prior data for long-term investments, etc.
So my files are rather large.  I've experimented with using SQLite, but not
found it advantageous.  While it is quicker on the backend (ie. When you
quit the program) it is noticeably slower on the frontend.  Because it is
designed for an in-memory store, it has to load the entire database into
memory up front, and that takes more time reading the data from SQLite than
simply sucking it in from a flat file.  I'm sure that is true with any
RDBMS.

Another con to using a RDBMS so far as I am concerned is the loss of
'revert' capability.  There are occasional situations where it is convenient
to simply scrub a session and start over.  That's a great deal more
complicated restoring a relational database from backup.

When I first started using GnuCash, I expected increasing file size to be a
problem.  I had formerly used Microsoft Money, which had an excellent
ability to discard older data without the loss of stuff that needed to be
retained long-term.  But twelve years on, I've not found that to be a
problem.  The folks maintaining this software have done a great job of
keeping the reading/writing of the XML data store efficient.