Posted by J.O. Aho on 02/03/07 08:26

alxasa@gmail.com wrote:
> I thought this would be relevant enough group to ask this server side
> question and it seems most people are not paranoid, suicidal or overly
> mean because their programming model is too complex, in this open
> source technology group. I work with PHP pages (alot), with allot of
> graphics --- my basic question and concept I yet do not fully
> understand (hope to have someone clarify, or even explain carefully
> how it works): and "it" is this:
>
> when one uploads using FTP a file to a Webserver, let us say a Linux
> or Unix Webserver model tied to a .com domain for instance...., when
> you upload it, a file, video, swf, or whatever --- for the sake of
> argument, would an apache server switch to the new uploaded file only
> after if it was completely uploaded/server transaction complete. Any
> 1 second downtimes or instantly available without microseconds of
> downtime? How does this work?

If the apache has access to the ftp-upload directory in some way, as soon as
the file is created (that starts to create a start inode on the filesystem),
the apache can try to access the file, of course not until the whole file is
uploaded it will be able to do anything serious.


> I know cache and other issues come into play at the client level, so
> maybe separately, someone can suggest some basic things I need to do
> to make sure people *always* receive the latest content I create, ....
> presumably we are talking about PHP objects with linked images,
> standard fare.

File cache of a file is flushed when the file next time is accessed and the
time in the cache no longer matches the one on the filesystem.


Depending on addons and/or php features used, you may have "prepossessed php
source", which will cause other results which has nothing to do with the file
system of the server.

--

//Aho

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