atomic get-then-delete command

[scott moody]

Hello,

I'm completely new to memcached (and I'm happy to report that I've had
no problems getting everything up-and-running).  I know protocols
aren't something one extends on a whim, but I was wondering if the
addition of an atomic 'get-then-delete' command has ever been bandied
about by anyone here.  I would use such a command (which I refer to as
a "consume" command) for memcached-based queues in order to implement
non-persistent Linda/tuplespace/distributed computing patterns.

My question is:  Is such a command a bad idea for any reason?  I ask
because I cloned and then frankensteined the handler for the "get"
command in memcached.c to create such a beast and it seems to be
working okay thus far -- but I haven't programmed in C in nearly a
dozen years and don't know the memcache code, so I'm certain that it's
not a commercial-grade mod. However, it would seem to me that, because
of the singled-threaded nature of memcached, it shouldn't a risky
proposition.  Am I wrong?

Apologies for adding even more mail to your inbox,

   Scott