[ale] coding practices

[Jim Kinney]

I am having a disagreement with a procedure and am seeking other views.

A non-free app generates a data file from a database function (database also
part of the non-free app).

A third party application needs to scp that file elsewhere for further
processing.

The third party wants a "done" file to indicate the app has finished writing
to the file. That's not needed due to how the app does it's write then a
move to the final location. No problem to touch a done file.

Third party also wants the total row count in the data file appended to the
data file.

This is where I disagree. I would far rather put the additional data in the
done file and not alter the output in anyway.

Granted, adding the row count is trivial (wc -l filename >> filename) and
that last line will be nothing like the actual data lines. It does make
reprocessing the data files more complicated as they have to be checked for
the presence of the row count on the last line before rerunning the import
process again.

Other views?

-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
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