Forum GET

[wizzardx]

The forum recently reached 40,000 posts XD.

Probably not too long until it reaches 50,000, and then surpasses the old forum.

I thought it would be nice to have a topic where we can post GET lines, to celebrate when the forum total post count reaches certain levels. Sadly it passed 9000 some time ago^^.

Edit:
- GET topic GET! xD.
- Frist Psot GET!

[Utsuho Lazy]

Post 41704 GET!

[L-Voss]

Shouldn't it be in the Play Pen? ^^'

[wizzardx]

Shouldn't it be in the Play Pen? ^^'

Heh, probably, now that you mention it. Although, it's more on-topic than "The off-topic topic" that is also in general chat. And it's not so much a "game" as a forum-related discussion. But if anyone with mod/admin powers wants to move it to Sasha's Playpen then it's fine with me ^^

[Utsuho Lazy]

Okay, I've moved it. Please tell me if you want to move it back.

I also find this more suitable for Play Pen - a game where we GET posts~

[wizzardx]

Okay, I've moved it. Please tell me if you want to move it back.

I also find this more suitable for Play Pen - a game where we GET posts~

I don't mind. In fact, I didn't even notice until you said so. My email client gave me a direct link ^^.

[Eleinia]

I'm just curious. How many bit does the forum post count use? I suppose even with 32 bit, we are not going to reach that in the forseeable future.

[wizzardx]

I'm just curious. How many bit does the forum post count use? I suppose even with 32 bit, we are not going to reach that in the forseeable future.

Are you asking how large each post is in the system? I'm not sure exactly, but the amount is negligible. I think the database encoding is something like unicode (utf-8), where most (western) letters take one byte, but special characters, kanji, etc, take 2 or more. And then there would be a few more bytes for book-keeping info for each post in the database. So probably on average a few hundred bytes per post. Just count the number of letters and add a few bytes ^^.

This post, for instance probably takes about 700 bytes in the database, and yours about 160 bytes

[Eleinia]

No, I was asking about the "post count", which we are talking about in this thread. I was just curious how big the post count could go up to before it overflows.

[wizzardx]

No, I was asking about the "post count", which we are talking about in this thread. I was just curious how big the post count could go up to before it overflows.

The post count itself probably isn't stored anywhere, but rather re-calculated on the fly. I don't think there is a limit to the post count itself (like you might see in a video games for various counters), but you could theoretically cause problems in the PHP code that checks the database, if the phpbb devs used a normal integer type during the calculation (which, as you said is usually 32 bits).

- Unsigned 32-bit integers can store up to 4.2 billion
- Signed 32-bit integers can store up to 2.1 billion.

According to the PHP docs, integers which overflow, are automatically converted to the "float" (floating point) type, which would allow the values to go *much* higher (although, with reduced precision after a point).

Another place you could run into integer overflow issues, is in the database side. Most of the time, records have at least one integer field, which automatically goes up by 1 every time a new record is added. So that other records can be linked to the new record (eg: for this new user record, which posts were made by him or her?).

It looks like, in the case of our database, the post id is the mysql data type "mediumint unsigned", which can go up to 16.7 million. If the number of posts reaches that point, we will probably start getting database errors saying something like "integer overflow", and no more posts will be saved. If that were to happen, it would be fixable in a few ways. eg: convert the id field type to an integer type that can support larger values, like "bigint unsigned", which can hold numbers up to 18.4 septillion.

It's incredibly unlikely that we will get 16.7 million posts (this is is a small forum, and probably won't be active for more than a few years). But, in the event that it was possible (if this was a larger place like GameFAQs, for instance), we'd first run into issues like:

(in this order):

- ram (used by mysql while running queries)
- cpu (used by mysql to run queries to fetch data)]
- disk i/o speed (needed by mysql, otherwise it takes a long time)
- harddrive space (to store all the posts)

[Eleinia]

Wow, that's a lot more information than I expected. Though it's always good to learn more. Thanks!

[wizzardx]

Wow, that's a lot more information than I expected. Though it's always good to learn more. Thanks!

Your question made me curious, so I did some research ^^.

[Utsuho Lazy]

(this is is a small forum, and probably won't be active for more than a few years)

Nyoro~n...

[Memoria]

hmm... interesting..

[Nash]

(this is is a small forum, and probably won't be active for more than a few years)

Nyoro~n...

Hope it'd at least be active when the Towers are realised in our own world, realising the Ar tonelico prophecy.

[wizzardx]

(this is is a small forum, and probably won't be active for more than a few years)

Nyoro~n...

I don't like the idea either, but it is probably realistic.

After a certain point, when the AT series is complete, the game will start getting older and even more obscure, and people will eventually start losing interest. We'll get to a point where there are very few new members, and existing members become inactive. People move on with life and stuff.

I'm not sure how to prevent that, and how to retain interest in the forum in the longer term. Hopefully there will be other games that come out, similar to At that we can rant about here after the AT series ends. Maybe Gust has something planned for after At3 ^^.

[Nash]

When and if the time comes, we should remodel this place to become the leading community for the world's Hymmnos speakers! We might even have world and regional meets! Of course, we are not limited to languages only, but also other Ar Ciel esque things when the prophecy is realised with all important tasks such as protecting the Reyvateils' rights and all that jazz. *shot*

[wizzardx]

XD. Of course though, the prophecy is for a different world, even though we use our date system of AD and BC for their timeline. According to the prophecy, Meta Falss has already summoned the Tsukikanade from around the world and started using the power of Sound ^^. And sadly, the next significant event is only in 900 years, and the construction of the first tower, 20 years afterwards. Most of us will be long gone by then, and still on the wrong world ^^.

[Utsuho Lazy]

Somehow this topic has become serious discussion that it suddenly doesn't seem suitable for Play Pen anymore...

[wizzardx]

Take that!

42344 GET!