The purpose of the data communications unit is to hide the storage and transmission of data from the other software modules. The unit makes the data look like it is stored in memory when in fact it may be on the disk or in a remote location. This unit also manages the synchronisation and locking of multiple copies of data.
The data communications unit consists of the following modules
- authenticators
- builders and factories
- lockers ** removed now in the lock processor.
- prefetchers
- prototype caches
- request brokers
- savers
- Data IO Units
Thing lockers are used to access locks on things before performing an action on the thing. This prevents 2 or more users trying to simultaneously modify one thing.
Thing savers, save the thing back to a data file.
Thing builders and factories load things into memory.
Data IO units hide the actual data storage location from the game.
file and http IO uses the bvyy.io classes to access file and http data.
Prototype caches store the prototypes for the game world, online to speed operation of the game.
22/11/99