Gavin writes:

> As I recall, message files (now in Native Mode since ~5.0)
>do not support being attached to the transaction manager (an unfortunate
>oversight as this ought to have made them virtually failure proof).
>...
>Message files are subject to loss of data not posted to disk when the
>machine fails, just like other types of file.  You can use the (relatively
>expensive) FCONTROL 6 operation to force all data up to the current
>time to be flushed to disk.

These are two sides of the same coin. Message files are implemented so
that the data need never end up on disc if the reader(s) and writer(s)
are closely synchronized. Attaching a message file to the XM would come
at a substantial performance cost, with no benefit to applications that
are using message files to communicate volatile information.

Applications that use FCONTROL 6 to force data out to disc get the same
benefit without the cost of having _every_ message file attached to the
XM.

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