Question

I’m not sure I 100% understand what the database does. If I just have some misconception, please point it out.

Let’s say I have a function that wants to create 100 new entry in the database with has 100,000 entries.

It seems a lot faster when those 100 entries get create and the commit is made after the last entry is created.

Now, if those 100 entries get created by different users, is there a easy way to commit only after 100 entries are created?

Edit:
Should I maybe write some sort of buffer?

Answer 1

Databases are optimized for set-based operations, so yes it wouldbe faster to insert 100 records in a set than one at a time. However, when you are talking about users entering records one ata atime, you would not want to group them together under any circumstances that I can think of. Why?

First, if there was one bad record, the others would fail. This would make for 99 cranky users out of 100 (actually 100, but one would not really have reason to be cranky becasue he did the bad data entry to begin with).
Second, users would not see the records immediately after being entered. It is also true that they would not be able to do something further with those records until they are entered such as enter data into related tables. Having a delay like this would make users cranky. If users are entering data from customers through a phone call, they will be especially cranky at the wait (I worked at a call center with a horribly slow commercial product and believe me I know how upset the users used to get!)
Third, users will have gone on to something else and would not realize that their data was rejected for bad information, not a good thing at all.
How long are you going to wait to get your set number of records? 5 seconds, ten minutes?
What happens if for some reason the netwrok connection is lost during that time, wouldn;t the users lose the data they entered.