Re: Problems with depend

[Jan-Henrik Haukeland]

Rory Toma <address@hidden> writes:

> I purposely did it this way. It would be difficult to implement the
> other way. We'd have to have some kind of data structure that keeps
> track of everything, rather than the pointers to the next processes
> that we use now.

Yes, browsing through my old algorithm book I think the data structure
we are talking about has to be a graph (represented with a two-
dimensional matrix), probably even a weighted graph. And it seems that
the way to go is to use the Dijkstra's Algorithm to find the
start/stop order route in the graph. The pages I'm looking at right
now is loaded with heavy duty matematichs so it's probably going to be
an interesting challenge %-)

> I'll see if I can think of something simple. 

Simple is my favorite word, especially in combination with other words
like, keep it simple. And it's probably an easier and simpler way to
solve this than to bring in Dijkstra and advanced graph algorithms.

> I think I can easily fix the previous problem, but not this
> one. Perhaps we can better document the monitrc file and mention
> that the order matters?

But is it going to be okay with only fixing a right start-order? I
haven't tested this _really_ (I should, and others should as well) but
I will not be suprised if using a monitrc file with many entries and
many internal dependencies can become a rather messy affair with lots
of on-off-on-off-on program starting patterns. But maybe not, since
the strategy you use are fairly simple? BTW, have you tested with say
10 entries and with at least 5 dependencies? Did it work as expected?

I'm not so found of forcing the user to write entries in a certain
order for this to work, since it's easy to forget. You'll find a smart
solution for this won't you? We DEPEND on you :-)

-- 
Jan-Henrik Haukeland