Re: Reg/INI Discussion from much earlier

From: J French (erewhon_at_nowhere.com)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 05:43:51 +0000 (UTC)

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 13:58:20 GMT, "Wes Spikes"
<MornThdr@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:

>Thread I'm commenting on is "Re: Best practice for saving information
>between runs?"
>
>OK, Sorry to be coming in late. First, I must note that I'm using Outlook
>Express to read this and I cannot read the entire thread. (I'm going to go
>to Google later and read it all), but for now, this is my openion on the
>Reg/INI question. Do NOT take my openion facto because I am open to
>suggestions.
>
>Save everything into the regestry it's faster. But one must also note that
>in the event of an improper shutdown, the registry is NOT saved. This may be
>good if an app setting that the user has changed is causing it to crash on
>load, but also may be bad if it is caused by a power outage or some other
>uncontrolable factor and the user wants to save his/her settings. Therefore,
>I believe that it may just be best to save 2 copies. One to an INI (or any
>other file for that matter [binary or text alike]) and one copy to the
>registry. For the first value in the INI file, put the date/time the
>settings were saved. And save that same date/time into the registry. If
>there is an improper shutdown, then those two dates will differ, and, on
>your app's load, you can prompt the user for which settings to use.
>
>I'm very open to suggestions and am looking forward to hearing them.

I agree with the 'belt and braces' approach
There are some interesting developments from that

I am a bit lost about the reasoning though.
Using both the Registry and the INI file has got to be /slower/ than
just using one of them

Personally I am deeply suspicious of the PrivateProfile APIs
I suspect that they are very inefficient, and prefer to use my own INI
Class - so I simply have one File Open Read Close at the start of the
App, and from then on have the INI entirely in memory

Under 16 bit Windows I snooped on INI file activity with my own 16 bit
version of FileMon that dumped all file activity to the printer
- the printer was screaming
I should really do a similar test with FileMon