Transactional access to resource repositories

A method for performing a transaction on a resource on a database, the method comprising:

• receiving a request for a transaction on a resource of a repository, the transaction making one or more changes to the resource of the repository;
• creating a snapshot of the repository by:
• copying a directory structure of the repository into a temporary directory and hard linking resources of the repository to the temporary directory;
• or
• using a copy-on-write functionality of a filesystem to create a clone of the repository into a temporary directory;
• performing reads and/or writes of the transaction on the snapshot;
• evaluating potential conflicts between the reads and/or the writes of the transaction and those of other concurrently committed transactions;
• responsive to no conflict being found, committing the transaction to a write-ahead log;
• and
• updating the repository based on the changes recorded in the write-ahead log.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations including:

• receiving a request for a transaction on a resource of a repository, the transaction making one or more changes to the resource of the repository;
• creating a snapshot of the repository by:
• copying a directory structure of the repository into a temporary directory and hard linking resources of the repository to the temporary directory;
• or
• using a copy-on-write functionality of a filesystem to create a clone of the repository into a temporary directory;
• performing reads and/or writes of the transaction on the snapshot;
• evaluating potential conflicts between the reads and/or the writes of the transaction and those of other concurrently committed transactions;
• responsive to no conflict is being found, committing the transaction to a write-ahead log;
• and
• updating the repository based on the changes recorded in the write-ahead log.