If you want this to go faster, I would suggest not worrying about threading, and worry about the inserts instead. Inserts are slow operations on almost any (every?) database.

I don't know MySQL at all, but every other database I've run into has a "bulk insert" mode or command. If you want this to go fast, do whatever you have to in Perl to get the data into a format that can be bulk inserted. (In PostgreSQL, this would be a simple line transform, since the bulk insert format is plain text and "COPY FROM STDIN" magic.) If MySQL doesn't have a bulk insert method, you might want to reconsider your database choice.

The other thing that will help is to do the bulk insert to a table that has no indexes, then move the data to an indexed table (using SQL) when the machine has spare time. This could be done with Perl and DBI, or maybe an ON DELETE trigger that then inserts the record in the indexed table.

Once you're doing bulk inserts, if you are still having performance concerns, then some sort of buffering is appropriate. (both the pipe and queue suggestions above are valid, pick the one you feel most comfortable with.)


--
Spring: Forces, Coiled Again!

In reply to Re: faster with threads? by paulbort
in thread faster with threads? by js1

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.