Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 81652
view alteration in HSQL is prone to racing conditions
Last modified: 2017-05-20 10:44:24 UTC
With issue 49183, we implemented the possibility to alter, using Base's query designer, the statement which constitutes a view. Which is fine so far ... Unfortunately, HSQL does not really support altering a view as atomic operation. Thus, the implementation needs to a) drop the view b) re-create it with a new statement c) re-create it with the original statement if the second step failed. This approach is prone to racing conditions. For instance, imagine a second instance removes the table which the view is based on, just after step a), but before step c). In this case, to the user the attempt to alter the view will result in the loss of the view. We should implement the support for ALTER VIEW <name> TO <statement> in HSQLDB.
This is what Fred Toussi, maintainer of HSQLDB, suggested in private mail how this could be implemented in HSQL: I suggest the following strategy: 1. check the view is not referenced by any other view 2. create the view with a new name in the same schema (perhaps use a name that is illegal for users, e.g. a digit, so that there is no name conflict). 3. if the new view is created, then drop the old one and rename the new one to the old name 4. When you have developed the above, you can attempt a more ambitious strategy to deal with referenced views too, which means skipping (1), renaming the old view to another number in (3) The new view should be inserted in the view list just after the old one (the order of view creation is critical), then recompiling all views, and if it is successful, removing the old view (otherwise remove the new one and rename the old one to its original name.
Reset the assignee to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".