Chapter 15 Alternative Storage Engines

Table of Contents

15.1 Setting the Storage Engine
15.2 The MyISAM Storage Engine
15.2.1 MyISAM Startup Options
15.2.2 Space Needed for Keys
15.2.3 MyISAM Table Storage Formats
15.2.4 MyISAM Table Problems
15.3 The MEMORY Storage Engine
15.4 The CSV Storage Engine
15.4.1 Repairing and Checking CSV Tables
15.4.2 CSV Limitations
15.5 The ARCHIVE Storage Engine
15.6 The BLACKHOLE Storage Engine
15.7 The MERGE Storage Engine
15.7.1 MERGE Table Advantages and Disadvantages
15.7.2 MERGE Table Problems
15.8 The FEDERATED Storage Engine
15.8.1 FEDERATED Storage Engine Overview
15.8.2 How to Create FEDERATED Tables
15.8.3 FEDERATED Storage Engine Notes and Tips
15.8.4 FEDERATED Storage Engine Resources
15.9 The EXAMPLE Storage Engine
15.10 Other Storage Engines
15.11 Overview of MySQL Storage Engine Architecture
15.11.1 Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture
15.11.2 The Common Database Server Layer

Storage engines are MySQL components that handle the SQL operations for different table types. InnoDB is the default and most general-purpose storage engine, and Oracle recommends using it for tables except for specialized use cases. (The CREATE TABLE statement in MySQL 5.7 creates InnoDB tables by default.)

MySQL Server uses a pluggable storage engine architecture that enables storage engines to be loaded into and unloaded from a running MySQL server.

To determine which storage engines your server supports, use the SHOW ENGINES statement. The value in the Support column indicates whether an engine can be used. A value of YES, NO, or DEFAULT indicates that an engine is available, not available, or available and currently set as the default storage engine.

mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
      Engine: PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA
     Support: YES
     Comment: Performance Schema
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 2. row ***************************
      Engine: InnoDB
     Support: DEFAULT
     Comment: Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys
Transactions: YES
          XA: YES
  Savepoints: YES
*************************** 3. row ***************************
      Engine: MRG_MYISAM
     Support: YES
     Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 4. row ***************************
      Engine: BLACKHOLE
     Support: YES
     Comment: /dev/null storage engine (anything you write to it disappears)
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 5. row ***************************
      Engine: MyISAM
     Support: YES
     Comment: MyISAM storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
...

This chapter covers use cases for special-purpose MySQL storage engines. It does not cover the default InnoDB storage engine or the NDB storage engine which are covered in Chapter 14, The InnoDB Storage Engine, and Chapter 21, MySQL NDB Cluster 7.5 and NDB Cluster 7.6. For advanced users, this chapter also contains a description of the pluggable storage engine architecture (see Section 15.11, “Overview of MySQL Storage Engine Architecture”).

For information about storage engine support offered in commercial MySQL Server binaries, see MySQL Enterprise Server 5.7, on the MySQL website. The storage engines available might depend on which edition of Enterprise Server you are using.

For answers to commonly asked questions about MySQL storage engines, see Section A.2, “MySQL 5.7 FAQ: Storage Engines”.

MySQL 5.7 Supported Storage Engines

You are not restricted to using the same storage engine for an entire server or schema. You can specify the storage engine for any table. For example, an application might use mostly InnoDB tables, with one CSV table for exporting data to a spreadsheet and a few MEMORY tables for temporary workspaces.

Choosing a Storage Engine

The various storage engines provided with MySQL are designed with different use cases in mind. The following table provides an overview of some storage engines provided with MySQL, with clarifying notes following the table.

Table 15.1 Storage Engines Feature Summary

Feature MyISAM Memory InnoDB Archive NDB
B-tree indexes Yes Yes Yes No No
Backup/point-in-time recovery (note 1) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Cluster database support No No No No Yes
Clustered indexes No No Yes No No
Compressed data Yes (note 2) No Yes Yes No
Data caches No N/A Yes No Yes
Encrypted data (note 3) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Foreign key support No No Yes No Yes (note 4)
Full-text search indexes Yes No Yes (note 5) No No
Geospatial data type support Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Geospatial indexing support Yes No Yes (note 6) No No
Hash indexes No Yes No (note 7) No Yes
Index caches Yes N/A Yes No Yes
Locking granularity Table Table Row Row Row
MVCC No No Yes No No
Query cache support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Replication support (note 1) Yes Limited (note 8) Yes Yes Yes
Storage limits 256TB RAM 64TB None 384EB
T-tree indexes No No No No Yes
Transactions No No Yes No Yes
Update statistics for data dictionary Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Notes:

1. Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.

2. Compressed MyISAM tables are supported only when using the compressed row format. Tables using the compressed row format with MyISAM are read only.

3. Implemented in the server via encryption functions. Data-at-rest tablespace encryption is available in MySQL 5.7 and later.

4. Support for foreign keys is available in MySQL Cluster NDB 7.3 and later.

5. InnoDB support for FULLTEXT indexes is available in MySQL 5.6 and later.

6. InnoDB support for geospatial indexing is available in MySQL 5.7 and later.

7. InnoDB utilizes hash indexes internally for its Adaptive Hash Index feature.

8. See the discussion later in this section.

15.1 Setting the Storage Engine

When you create a new table, you can specify which storage engine to use by adding an ENGINE table option to the CREATE TABLE statement:

-- ENGINE=INNODB not needed unless you have set a different
-- default storage engine.
CREATE TABLE t1 (i INT) ENGINE = INNODB;
-- Simple table definitions can be switched from one to another.
CREATE TABLE t2 (i INT) ENGINE = CSV;
CREATE TABLE t3 (i INT) ENGINE = MEMORY;

When you omit the ENGINE option, the default storage engine is used. The default engine is InnoDB in MySQL 5.7. You can specify the default engine by using the --default-storage-engine server startup option, or by setting the default-storage-engine option in the my.cnf configuration file.

You can set the default storage engine for the current session by setting the default_storage_engine variable:

SET default_storage_engine=NDBCLUSTER;

The storage engine for TEMPORARY tables created with CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE can be set separately from the engine for permanent tables by setting the default_tmp_storage_engine, either at startup or at runtime.

To convert a table from one storage engine to another, use an ALTER TABLE statement that indicates the new engine:

ALTER TABLE t ENGINE = InnoDB;

See Section 13.1.18, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”, and Section 13.1.8, “ALTER TABLE Syntax”.

If you try to use a storage engine that is not compiled in or that is compiled in but deactivated, MySQL instead creates a table using the default storage engine. For example, in a replication setup, perhaps your master server uses InnoDB tables for maximum safety, but the slave servers use other storage engines for speed at the expense of durability or concurrency.

By default, a warning is generated whenever CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE cannot use the default storage engine. To prevent confusing, unintended behavior if the desired engine is unavailable, enable the NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION SQL mode. If the desired engine is unavailable, this setting produces an error instead of a warning, and the table is not created or altered. See Section 5.1.8, “Server SQL Modes”.

For new tables, MySQL always creates an .frm file to hold the table and column definitions. The table's index and data may be stored in one or more other files, depending on the storage engine. The server creates the .frm file above the storage engine level. Individual storage engines create any additional files required for the tables that they manage. If a table name contains special characters, the names for the table files contain encoded versions of those characters as described in Section 9.2.3, “Mapping of Identifiers to File Names”.

15.2 The MyISAM Storage Engine

MyISAM is based on the older (and no longer available) ISAM storage engine but has many useful extensions.

Table 15.2 MyISAM Storage Engine Features

Feature Support
B-tree indexes Yes
Backup/point-in-time recovery (Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.) Yes
Cluster database support No
Clustered indexes No
Compressed data Yes (Compressed MyISAM tables are supported only when using the compressed row format. Tables using the compressed row format with MyISAM are read only.)
Data caches No
Encrypted data (Implemented in the server via encryption functions. Data-at-rest tablespace encryption is available in MySQL 5.7 and later.) Yes
Foreign key support No
Full-text search indexes Yes
Geospatial data type support Yes
Geospatial indexing support Yes
Hash indexes No
Index caches Yes
Locking granularity Table
MVCC No
Query cache support Yes
Replication support (Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.) Yes
Storage limits 256TB
T-tree indexes No
Transactions No
Update statistics for data dictionary Yes

Each MyISAM table is stored on disk in three files. The files have names that begin with the table name and have an extension to indicate the file type. An .frm file stores the table format. The data file has an .MYD (MYData) extension. The index file has an .MYI (MYIndex) extension.

To specify explicitly that you want a MyISAM table, indicate that with an ENGINE table option:

CREATE TABLE t (i INT) ENGINE = MYISAM;

In MySQL 5.7, it is normally necessary to use ENGINE to specify the MyISAM storage engine because InnoDB is the default engine.

You can check or repair MyISAM tables with the mysqlcheck client or myisamchk utility. You can also compress MyISAM tables with myisampack to take up much less space. See Section 4.5.3, “mysqlcheck — A Table Maintenance Program”, Section 4.6.3, “myisamchk — MyISAM Table-Maintenance Utility”, and Section 4.6.5, “myisampack — Generate Compressed, Read-Only MyISAM Tables”.

MyISAM tables have the following characteristics:

  • All data values are stored with the low byte first. This makes the data machine and operating system independent. The only requirements for binary portability are that the machine uses two's-complement signed integers and IEEE floating-point format. These requirements are widely used among mainstream machines. Binary compatibility might not be applicable to embedded systems, which sometimes have peculiar processors.

    There is no significant speed penalty for storing data low byte first; the bytes in a table row normally are unaligned and it takes little more processing to read an unaligned byte in order than in reverse order. Also, the code in the server that fetches column values is not time critical compared to other code.

  • All numeric key values are stored with the high byte first to permit better index compression.

  • Large files (up to 63-bit file length) are supported on file systems and operating systems that support large files.

  • There is a limit of (232)2 (1.844E+19) rows in a MyISAM table.

  • The maximum number of indexes per MyISAM table is 64.

    The maximum number of columns per index is 16.

  • The maximum key length is 1000 bytes. This can also be changed by changing the source and recompiling. For the case of a key longer than 250 bytes, a larger key block size than the default of 1024 bytes is used.

  • When rows are inserted in sorted order (as when you are using an AUTO_INCREMENT column), the index tree is split so that the high node only contains one key. This improves space utilization in the index tree.

  • Internal handling of one AUTO_INCREMENT column per table is supported. MyISAM automatically updates this column for INSERT and UPDATE operations. This makes AUTO_INCREMENT columns faster (at least 10%). Values at the top of the sequence are not reused after being deleted. (When an AUTO_INCREMENT column is defined as the last column of a multiple-column index, reuse of values deleted from the top of a sequence does occur.) The AUTO_INCREMENT value can be reset with ALTER TABLE or myisamchk.

  • Dynamic-sized rows are much less fragmented when mixing deletes with updates and inserts. This is done by automatically combining adjacent deleted blocks and by extending blocks if the next block is deleted.

  • MyISAM supports concurrent inserts: If a table has no free blocks in the middle of the data file, you can INSERT new rows into it at the same time that other threads are reading from the table. A free block can occur as a result of deleting rows or an update of a dynamic length row with more data than its current contents. When all free blocks are used up (filled in), future inserts become concurrent again. See Section 8.11.3, “Concurrent Inserts”.

  • You can put the data file and index file in different directories on different physical devices to get more speed with the DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY table options to CREATE TABLE. See Section 13.1.18, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”.

  • BLOB and TEXT columns can be indexed.

  • NULL values are permitted in indexed columns. This takes 0 to 1 bytes per key.

  • Each character column can have a different character set. See Chapter 10, Character Sets, Collations, Unicode.

  • There is a flag in the MyISAM index file that indicates whether the table was closed correctly. If mysqld is started with the --myisam-recover-options option, MyISAM tables are automatically checked when opened, and are repaired if the table wasn't closed properly.

  • myisamchk marks tables as checked if you run it with the --update-state option. myisamchk --fast checks only those tables that don't have this mark.

  • myisamchk --analyze stores statistics for portions of keys, as well as for entire keys.

  • myisampack can pack BLOB and VARCHAR columns.

MyISAM also supports the following features:

  • Support for a true VARCHAR type; a VARCHAR column starts with a length stored in one or two bytes.

  • Tables with VARCHAR columns may have fixed or dynamic row length.

  • The sum of the lengths of the VARCHAR and CHAR columns in a table may be up to 64KB.

  • Arbitrary length UNIQUE constraints.

Additional Resources

15.2.1 MyISAM Startup Options

The following options to mysqld can be used to change the behavior of MyISAM tables. For additional information, see Section 5.1.4, “Server Command Options”.

Table 15.3 MyISAM Option and Variable Reference

Name Cmd-Line Option File System Var Status Var Var Scope Dynamic
bulk_insert_buffer_size Yes Yes Yes Both Yes
concurrent_insert Yes Yes Yes Global Yes
delay-key-write Yes Yes Global Yes
- Variable: delay_key_write Yes Global Yes
have_rtree_keys Yes Global No
key_buffer_size Yes Yes Yes Global Yes
log-isam Yes Yes
myisam-block-size Yes Yes
myisam_data_pointer_size Yes Yes Yes Global Yes
myisam_max_sort_file_size Yes Yes Yes Global Yes
myisam_mmap_size Yes Yes Yes Global No
myisam-recover-options Yes Yes
- Variable: myisam_recover_options
myisam_recover_options Yes Global No
myisam_repair_threads Yes Yes Yes Both Yes
myisam_sort_buffer_size Yes Yes Yes Both Yes
myisam_stats_method Yes Yes Yes Both Yes
myisam_use_mmap Yes Yes Yes Global Yes
skip-concurrent-insert Yes Yes
- Variable: concurrent_insert
tmp_table_size Yes Yes Yes Both Yes

  • --myisam-recover-options=mode

    Set the mode for automatic recovery of crashed MyISAM tables.

  • --delay-key-write=ALL

    Don't flush key buffers between writes for any MyISAM table.

    Note

    If you do this, you should not access MyISAM tables from another program (such as from another MySQL server or with myisamchk) when the tables are in use. Doing so risks index corruption. Using --external-locking does not eliminate this risk.

The following system variables affect the behavior of MyISAM tables. For additional information, see Section 5.1.5, “Server System Variables”.

Automatic recovery is activated if you start mysqld with the --myisam-recover-options option. In this case, when the server opens a MyISAM table, it checks whether the table is marked as crashed or whether the open count variable for the table is not 0 and you are running the server with external locking disabled. If either of these conditions is true, the following happens:

  • The server checks the table for errors.

  • If the server finds an error, it tries to do a fast table repair (with sorting and without re-creating the data file).

  • If the repair fails because of an error in the data file (for example, a duplicate-key error), the server tries again, this time re-creating the data file.

  • If the repair still fails, the server tries once more with the old repair option method (write row by row without sorting). This method should be able to repair any type of error and has low disk space requirements.

If the recovery wouldn't be able to recover all rows from previously completed statements and you didn't specify FORCE in the value of the --myisam-recover-options option, automatic repair aborts with an error message in the error log:

Error: Couldn't repair table: test.g00pages

If you specify FORCE, a warning like this is written instead:

Warning: Found 344 of 354 rows when repairing ./test/g00pages

If the automatic recovery value includes BACKUP, the recovery process creates files with names of the form tbl_name-datetime.BAK. You should have a cron script that automatically moves these files from the database directories to backup media.

15.2.2 Space Needed for Keys

MyISAM tables use B-tree indexes. You can roughly calculate the size for the index file as (key_length+4)/0.67, summed over all keys. This is for the worst case when all keys are inserted in sorted order and the table doesn't have any compressed keys.

String indexes are space compressed. If the first index part is a string, it is also prefix compressed. Space compression makes the index file smaller than the worst-case figure if a string column has a lot of trailing space or is a VARCHAR column that is not always used to the full length. Prefix compression is used on keys that start with a string. Prefix compression helps if there are many strings with an identical prefix.

In MyISAM tables, you can also prefix compress numbers by specifying the PACK_KEYS=1 table option when you create the table. Numbers are stored with the high byte first, so this helps when you have many integer keys that have an identical prefix.

15.2.3 MyISAM Table Storage Formats

MyISAM supports three different storage formats. Two of them, fixed and dynamic format, are chosen automatically depending on the type of columns you are using. The third, compressed format, can be created only with the myisampack utility (see Section 4.6.5, “myisampack — Generate Compressed, Read-Only MyISAM Tables”).

When you use CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE for a table that has no BLOB or TEXT columns, you can force the table format to FIXED or DYNAMIC with the ROW_FORMAT table option.

See Section 13.1.18, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”, for information about ROW_FORMAT.

You can decompress (unpack) compressed MyISAM tables using myisamchk --unpack; see Section 4.6.3, “myisamchk — MyISAM Table-Maintenance Utility”, for more information.

15.2.3.1 Static (Fixed-Length) Table Characteristics

Static format is the default for MyISAM tables. It is used when the table contains no variable-length columns (VARCHAR, VARBINARY, BLOB, or TEXT). Each row is stored using a fixed number of bytes.

Of the three MyISAM storage formats, static format is the simplest and most secure (least subject to corruption). It is also the fastest of the on-disk formats due to the ease with which rows in the data file can be found on disk: To look up a row based on a row number in the index, multiply the row number by the row length to calculate the row position. Also, when scanning a table, it is very easy to read a constant number of rows with each disk read operation.

The security is evidenced if your computer crashes while the MySQL server is writing to a fixed-format MyISAM file. In this case, myisamchk can easily determine where each row starts and ends, so it can usually reclaim all rows except the partially written one. MyISAM table indexes can always be reconstructed based on the data rows.

Note

Fixed-length row format is only available for tables without BLOB or TEXT columns. Creating a table with these columns with an explicit ROW_FORMAT clause will not raise an error or warning; the format specification will be ignored.

Static-format tables have these characteristics:

  • CHAR and VARCHAR columns are space-padded to the specified column width, although the column type is not altered. BINARY and VARBINARY columns are padded with 0x00 bytes to the column width.

  • NULL columns require additional space in the row to record whether their values are NULL. Each NULL column takes one bit extra, rounded up to the nearest byte.

  • Very quick.

  • Easy to cache.

  • Easy to reconstruct after a crash, because rows are located in fixed positions.

  • Reorganization is unnecessary unless you delete a huge number of rows and want to return free disk space to the operating system. To do this, use OPTIMIZE TABLE or myisamchk -r.

  • Usually require more disk space than dynamic-format tables.

  • The expected row length in bytes for static-sized rows is calculated using the following expression:

    row length = 1
                 + (sum of column lengths)
                 + (number of NULL columns + delete_flag + 7)/8
                 + (number of variable-length columns)
    

    delete_flag is 1 for tables with static row format. Static tables use a bit in the row record for a flag that indicates whether the row has been deleted. delete_flag is 0 for dynamic tables because the flag is stored in the dynamic row header.

15.2.3.2 Dynamic Table Characteristics

Dynamic storage format is used if a MyISAM table contains any variable-length columns (VARCHAR, VARBINARY, BLOB, or TEXT), or if the table was created with the ROW_FORMAT=DYNAMIC table option.

Dynamic format is a little more complex than static format because each row has a header that indicates how long it is. A row can become fragmented (stored in noncontiguous pieces) when it is made longer as a result of an update.

You can use OPTIMIZE TABLE or myisamchk -r to defragment a table. If you have fixed-length columns that you access or change frequently in a table that also contains some variable-length columns, it might be a good idea to move the variable-length columns to other tables just to avoid fragmentation.

Dynamic-format tables have these characteristics:

  • All string columns are dynamic except those with a length less than four.

  • Each row is preceded by a bitmap that indicates which columns contain the empty string (for string columns) or zero (for numeric columns). This does not include columns that contain NULL values. If a string column has a length of zero after trailing space removal, or a numeric column has a value of zero, it is marked in the bitmap and not saved to disk. Nonempty strings are saved as a length byte plus the string contents.

  • NULL columns require additional space in the row to record whether their values are NULL. Each NULL column takes one bit extra, rounded up to the nearest byte.

  • Much less disk space usually is required than for fixed-length tables.

  • Each row uses only as much space as is required. However, if a row becomes larger, it is split into as many pieces as are required, resulting in row fragmentation. For example, if you update a row with information that extends the row length, the row becomes fragmented. In this case, you may have to run OPTIMIZE TABLE or myisamchk -r from time to time to improve performance. Use myisamchk -ei to obtain table statistics.

  • More difficult than static-format tables to reconstruct after a crash, because rows may be fragmented into many pieces and links (fragments) may be missing.

  • The expected row length for dynamic-sized rows is calculated using the following expression:

    3
    + (number of columns + 7) / 8
    + (number of char columns)
    + (packed size of numeric columns)
    + (length of strings)
    + (number of NULL columns + 7) / 8
    

    There is a penalty of 6 bytes for each link. A dynamic row is linked whenever an update causes an enlargement of the row. Each new link is at least 20 bytes, so the next enlargement probably goes in the same link. If not, another link is created. You can find the number of links using myisamchk -ed. All links may be removed with OPTIMIZE TABLE or myisamchk -r.

15.2.3.3 Compressed Table Characteristics

Compressed storage format is a read-only format that is generated with the myisampack tool. Compressed tables can be uncompressed with myisamchk.

Compressed tables have the following characteristics:

  • Compressed tables take very little disk space. This minimizes disk usage, which is helpful when using slow disks (such as CD-ROMs).

  • Each row is compressed separately, so there is very little access overhead. The header for a row takes up one to three bytes depending on the biggest row in the table. Each column is compressed differently. There is usually a different Huffman tree for each column. Some of the compression types are:

    • Suffix space compression.

    • Prefix space compression.

    • Numbers with a value of zero are stored using one bit.

    • If values in an integer column have a small range, the column is stored using the smallest possible type. For example, a BIGINT column (eight bytes) can be stored as a TINYINT column (one byte) if all its values are in the range from -128 to 127.

    • If a column has only a small set of possible values, the data type is converted to ENUM.

    • A column may use any combination of the preceding compression types.

  • Can be used for fixed-length or dynamic-length rows.

Note

While a compressed table is read only, and you cannot therefore update or add rows in the table, DDL (Data Definition Language) operations are still valid. For example, you may still use DROP to drop the table, and TRUNCATE TABLE to empty the table.

15.2.4 MyISAM Table Problems

The file format that MySQL uses to store data has been extensively tested, but there are always circumstances that may cause database tables to become corrupted. The following discussion describes how this can happen and how to handle it.

15.2.4.1 Corrupted MyISAM Tables

Even though the MyISAM table format is very reliable (all changes to a table made by an SQL statement are written before the statement returns), you can still get corrupted tables if any of the following events occur:

  • The mysqld process is killed in the middle of a write.

  • An unexpected computer shutdown occurs (for example, the computer is turned off).

  • Hardware failures.

  • You are using an external program (such as myisamchk) to modify a table that is being modified by the server at the same time.

  • A software bug in the MySQL or MyISAM code.

Typical symptoms of a corrupt table are:

  • You get the following error while selecting data from the table:

    Incorrect key file for table: '...'. Try to repair it
    
  • Queries don't find rows in the table or return incomplete results.

You can check the health of a MyISAM table using the CHECK TABLE statement, and repair a corrupted MyISAM table with REPAIR TABLE. When mysqld is not running, you can also check or repair a table with the myisamchk command. See Section 13.7.2.2, “CHECK TABLE Syntax”, Section 13.7.2.5, “REPAIR TABLE Syntax”, and Section 4.6.3, “myisamchk — MyISAM Table-Maintenance Utility”.

If your tables become corrupted frequently, you should try to determine why this is happening. The most important thing to know is whether the table became corrupted as a result of a server crash. You can verify this easily by looking for a recent restarted mysqld message in the error log. If there is such a message, it is likely that table corruption is a result of the server dying. Otherwise, corruption may have occurred during normal operation. This is a bug. You should try to create a reproducible test case that demonstrates the problem. See Section B.5.3.3, “What to Do If MySQL Keeps Crashing”, and Section 28.5, “Debugging and Porting MySQL”.

15.2.4.2 Problems from Tables Not Being Closed Properly

Each MyISAM index file (.MYI file) has a counter in the header that can be used to check whether a table has been closed properly. If you get the following warning from CHECK TABLE or myisamchk, it means that this counter has gone out of sync:

clients are using or haven't closed the table properly

This warning doesn't necessarily mean that the table is corrupted, but you should at least check the table.

The counter works as follows:

  • The first time a table is updated in MySQL, a counter in the header of the index files is incremented.

  • The counter is not changed during further updates.

  • When the last instance of a table is closed (because a FLUSH TABLES operation was performed or because there is no room in the table cache), the counter is decremented if the table has been updated at any point.

  • When you repair the table or check the table and it is found to be okay, the counter is reset to zero.

  • To avoid problems with interaction with other processes that might check the table, the counter is not decremented on close if it was zero.

In other words, the counter can become incorrect only under these conditions:

15.3 The MEMORY Storage Engine

The MEMORY storage engine (formerly known as HEAP) creates special-purpose tables with contents that are stored in memory. Because the data is vulnerable to crashes, hardware issues, or power outages, only use these tables as temporary work areas or read-only caches for data pulled from other tables.

Table 15.4 MEMORY Storage Engine Features

Feature Support
B-tree indexes Yes
Backup/point-in-time recovery (Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.) Yes
Cluster database support No
Clustered indexes No
Compressed data No
Data caches N/A
Encrypted data (Implemented in the server via encryption functions. Data-at-rest tablespace encryption is available in MySQL 5.7 and later.) Yes
Foreign key support No
Full-text search indexes No
Geospatial data type support No
Geospatial indexing support No
Hash indexes Yes
Index caches N/A
Locking granularity Table
MVCC No
Query cache support Yes
Replication support (Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.) Limited (See the discussion later in this section.)
Storage limits RAM
T-tree indexes No
Transactions No
Update statistics for data dictionary Yes

When to Use MEMORY or NDB Cluster

Developers looking to deploy applications that use the MEMORY storage engine for important, highly available, or frequently updated data should consider whether NDB Cluster is a better choice. A typical use case for the MEMORY engine involves these characteristics:

  • Operations involving transient, non-critical data such as session management or caching. When the MySQL server halts or restarts, the data in MEMORY tables is lost.

  • In-memory storage for fast access and low latency. Data volume can fit entirely in memory without causing the operating system to swap out virtual memory pages.

  • A read-only or read-mostly data access pattern (limited updates).

NDB Cluster offers the same features as the MEMORY engine with higher performance levels, and provides additional features not available with MEMORY:

  • Row-level locking and multiple-thread operation for low contention between clients.

  • Scalability even with statement mixes that include writes.

  • Optional disk-backed operation for data durability.

  • Shared-nothing architecture and multiple-host operation with no single point of failure, enabling 99.999% availability.

  • Automatic data distribution across nodes; application developers need not craft custom sharding or partitioning solutions.

  • Support for variable-length data types (including BLOB and TEXT) not supported by MEMORY.

Performance Characteristics

MEMORY performance is constrained by contention resulting from single-thread execution and table lock overhead when processing updates. This limits scalability when load increases, particularly for statement mixes that include writes.

Despite the in-memory processing for MEMORY tables, they are not necessarily faster than InnoDB tables on a busy server, for general-purpose queries, or under a read/write workload. In particular, the table locking involved with performing updates can slow down concurrent usage of MEMORY tables from multiple sessions.

Depending on the kinds of queries performed on a MEMORY table, you might create indexes as either the default hash data structure (for looking up single values based on a unique key), or a general-purpose B-tree data structure (for all kinds of queries involving equality, inequality, or range operators such as less than or greater than). The following sections illustrate the syntax for creating both kinds of indexes. A common performance issue is using the default hash indexes in workloads where B-tree indexes are more efficient.

Characteristics of MEMORY Tables

The MEMORY storage engine associates each table with one disk file, which stores the table definition (not the data). The file name begins with the table name and has an extension of .frm.

MEMORY tables have the following characteristics:

  • Space for MEMORY tables is allocated in small blocks. Tables use 100% dynamic hashing for inserts. No overflow area or extra key space is needed. No extra space is needed for free lists. Deleted rows are put in a linked list and are reused when you insert new data into the table. MEMORY tables also have none of the problems commonly associated with deletes plus inserts in hashed tables.

  • MEMORY tables use a fixed-length row-storage format. Variable-length types such as VARCHAR are stored using a fixed length.

  • MEMORY tables cannot contain BLOB or TEXT columns.

  • MEMORY includes support for AUTO_INCREMENT columns.

  • Non-TEMPORARY MEMORY tables are shared among all clients, just like any other non-TEMPORARY table.

DDL Operations for MEMORY Tables

To create a MEMORY table, specify the clause ENGINE=MEMORY on the CREATE TABLE statement.

CREATE TABLE t (i INT) ENGINE = MEMORY;

As indicated by the engine name, MEMORY tables are stored in memory. They use hash indexes by default, which makes them very fast for single-value lookups, and very useful for creating temporary tables. However, when the server shuts down, all rows stored in MEMORY tables are lost. The tables themselves continue to exist because their definitions are stored in .frm files on disk, but they are empty when the server restarts.

This example shows how you might create, use, and remove a MEMORY table:

mysql> CREATE TABLE test ENGINE=MEMORY
    ->     SELECT ip,SUM(downloads) AS down
    ->     FROM log_table GROUP BY ip;
mysql> SELECT COUNT(ip),AVG(down) FROM test;
mysql> DROP TABLE test;

The maximum size of MEMORY tables is limited by the max_heap_table_size system variable, which has a default value of 16MB. To enforce different size limits for MEMORY tables, change the value of this variable. The value in effect for CREATE TABLE, or a subsequent ALTER TABLE or TRUNCATE TABLE, is the value used for the life of the table. A server restart also sets the maximum size of existing MEMORY tables to the global max_heap_table_size value. You can set the size for individual tables as described later in this section.

Indexes

The MEMORY storage engine supports both HASH and BTREE indexes. You can specify one or the other for a given index by adding a USING clause as shown here:

CREATE TABLE lookup
    (id INT, INDEX USING HASH (id))
    ENGINE = MEMORY;
CREATE TABLE lookup
    (id INT, INDEX USING BTREE (id))
    ENGINE = MEMORY;

For general characteristics of B-tree and hash indexes, see Section 8.3.1, “How MySQL Uses Indexes”.

MEMORY tables can have up to 64 indexes per table, 16 columns per index and a maximum key length of 3072 bytes.

If a MEMORY table hash index has a high degree of key duplication (many index entries containing the same value), updates to the table that affect key values and all deletes are significantly slower. The degree of this slowdown is proportional to the degree of duplication (or, inversely proportional to the index cardinality). You can use a BTREE index to avoid this problem.

MEMORY tables can have nonunique keys. (This is an uncommon feature for implementations of hash indexes.)

Columns that are indexed can contain NULL values.

User-Created and Temporary Tables

MEMORY table contents are stored in memory, which is a property that MEMORY tables share with internal temporary tables that the server creates on the fly while processing queries. However, the two types of tables differ in that MEMORY tables are not subject to storage conversion, whereas internal temporary tables are:

Loading Data

To populate a MEMORY table when the MySQL server starts, you can use the --init-file option. For example, you can put statements such as INSERT INTO ... SELECT or LOAD DATA INFILE into this file to load the table from a persistent data source. See Section 5.1.4, “Server Command Options”, and Section 13.2.6, “LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax”.

MEMORY Tables and Replication

A server's MEMORY tables become empty when it is shut down and restarted. If the server is a replication master, its slaves are not aware that these tables have become empty, so you see out-of-date content if you select data from the tables on the slaves. To synchronize master and slave MEMORY tables, when a MEMORY table is used on a master for the first time since it was started, a DELETE statement is written to the master's binary log, to empty the table on the slaves also. The slave still has outdated data in the table during the interval between the master's restart and its first use of the table. To avoid this interval when a direct query to the slave could return stale data, use the --init-file option to populate the MEMORY table on the master at startup.

Managing Memory Use

The server needs sufficient memory to maintain all MEMORY tables that are in use at the same time.

Memory is not reclaimed if you delete individual rows from a MEMORY table. Memory is reclaimed only when the entire table is deleted. Memory that was previously used for deleted rows is re-used for new rows within the same table. To free all the memory used by a MEMORY table when you no longer require its contents, execute DELETE or TRUNCATE TABLE to remove all rows, or remove the table altogether using DROP TABLE. To free up the memory used by deleted rows, use ALTER TABLE ENGINE=MEMORY to force a table rebuild.

The memory needed for one row in a MEMORY table is calculated using the following expression:

SUM_OVER_ALL_BTREE_KEYS(max_length_of_key + sizeof(char*) * 4)
+ SUM_OVER_ALL_HASH_KEYS(sizeof(char*) * 2)
+ ALIGN(length_of_row+1, sizeof(char*))

ALIGN() represents a round-up factor to cause the row length to be an exact multiple of the char pointer size. sizeof(char*) is 4 on 32-bit machines and 8 on 64-bit machines.

As mentioned earlier, the max_heap_table_size system variable sets the limit on the maximum size of MEMORY tables. To control the maximum size for individual tables, set the session value of this variable before creating each table. (Do not change the global max_heap_table_size value unless you intend the value to be used for MEMORY tables created by all clients.) The following example creates two MEMORY tables, with a maximum size of 1MB and 2MB, respectively:

mysql> SET max_heap_table_size = 1024*1024;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (id INT, UNIQUE(id)) ENGINE = MEMORY;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> SET max_heap_table_size = 1024*1024*2;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE t2 (id INT, UNIQUE(id)) ENGINE = MEMORY;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Both tables revert to the server's global max_heap_table_size value if the server restarts.

You can also specify a MAX_ROWS table option in CREATE TABLE statements for MEMORY tables to provide a hint about the number of rows you plan to store in them. This does not enable the table to grow beyond the max_heap_table_size value, which still acts as a constraint on maximum table size. For maximum flexibility in being able to use MAX_ROWS, set max_heap_table_size at least as high as the value to which you want each MEMORY table to be able to grow.

Additional Resources

A forum dedicated to the MEMORY storage engine is available at http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?92.

15.4 The CSV Storage Engine

The CSV storage engine stores data in text files using comma-separated values format.

The CSV storage engine is always compiled into the MySQL server.

To examine the source for the CSV engine, look in the storage/csv directory of a MySQL source distribution.

When you create a CSV table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. The storage engine also creates a data file. Its name begins with the table name and has a .CSV extension. The data file is a plain text file. When you store data into the table, the storage engine saves it into the data file in comma-separated values format.

mysql> CREATE TABLE test (i INT NOT NULL, c CHAR(10) NOT NULL)
    -> ENGINE = CSV;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.12 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES(1,'record one'),(2,'record two');
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM test;
+------+------------+
| i    | c          |
+------+------------+
|    1 | record one |
|    2 | record two |
+------+------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Creating a CSV table also creates a corresponding Metafile that stores the state of the table and the number of rows that exist in the table. The name of this file is the same as the name of the table with the extension CSM.

If you examine the test.CSV file in the database directory created by executing the preceding statements, its contents should look like this:

"1","record one"
"2","record two"

This format can be read, and even written, by spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel or StarOffice Calc.

15.4.1 Repairing and Checking CSV Tables

The CSV storage engines supports the CHECK and REPAIR statements to verify and if possible repair a damaged CSV table.

When running the CHECK statement, the CSV file will be checked for validity by looking for the correct field separators, escaped fields (matching or missing quotation marks), the correct number of fields compared to the table definition and the existence of a corresponding CSV metafile. The first invalid row discovered will report an error. Checking a valid table produces output like that shown below:

mysql> check table csvtest;
+--------------+-------+----------+----------+
| Table        | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+--------------+-------+----------+----------+
| test.csvtest | check | status   | OK       |
+--------------+-------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

A check on a corrupted table returns a fault:

mysql> check table csvtest;
+--------------+-------+----------+----------+
| Table        | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+--------------+-------+----------+----------+
| test.csvtest | check | error    | Corrupt  |
+--------------+-------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

If the check fails, the table is marked as crashed (corrupt). Once a table has been marked as corrupt, it is automatically repaired when you next run CHECK or execute a SELECT statement. The corresponding corrupt status and new status will be displayed when running CHECK:

mysql> check table csvtest;
+--------------+-------+----------+----------------------------+
| Table        | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text                   |
+--------------+-------+----------+----------------------------+
| test.csvtest | check | warning  | Table is marked as crashed |
| test.csvtest | check | status   | OK                         |
+--------------+-------+----------+----------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.08 sec)

To repair a table you can use REPAIR, this copies as many valid rows from the existing CSV data as possible, and then replaces the existing CSV file with the recovered rows. Any rows beyond the corrupted data are lost.

mysql> repair table csvtest;
+--------------+--------+----------+----------+
| Table        | Op     | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+--------------+--------+----------+----------+
| test.csvtest | repair | status   | OK       |
+--------------+--------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)
Warning

During repair, only the rows from the CSV file up to the first damaged row are copied to the new table. All other rows from the first damaged row to the end of the table are removed, even valid rows.

15.4.2 CSV Limitations

The CSV storage engine does not support indexing.

Partitioning is not supported for tables using the CSV storage engine.

All tables that you create using the CSV storage engine must have the NOT NULL attribute on all columns. However, for backward compatibility, you can continue to use tables with nullable columns that were created in previous MySQL releases. (Bug #32050)

15.5 The ARCHIVE Storage Engine

The ARCHIVE storage engine produces special-purpose tables that store large amounts of unindexed data in a very small footprint.

Table 15.5 ARCHIVE Storage Engine Features

Feature Support
B-tree indexes No
Backup/point-in-time recovery (Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.) Yes
Cluster database support No
Clustered indexes No
Compressed data Yes
Data caches No
Encrypted data (Implemented in the server via encryption functions. Data-at-rest tablespace encryption is available in MySQL 5.7 and later.) Yes
Foreign key support No
Full-text search indexes No
Geospatial data type support Yes
Geospatial indexing support No
Hash indexes No
Index caches No
Locking granularity Row
MVCC No
Query cache support Yes
Replication support (Implemented in the server, rather than in the storage engine.) Yes
Storage limits None
T-tree indexes No
Transactions No
Update statistics for data dictionary Yes

The ARCHIVE storage engine is included in MySQL binary distributions. To enable this storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke CMake with the -DWITH_ARCHIVE_STORAGE_ENGINE option.

To examine the source for the ARCHIVE engine, look in the storage/archive directory of a MySQL source distribution.

You can check whether the ARCHIVE storage engine is available with the SHOW ENGINES statement.

When you create an ARCHIVE table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. The storage engine creates other files, all having names beginning with the table name. The data file has an extension of .ARZ. An .ARN file may appear during optimization operations.

The ARCHIVE engine supports INSERT, REPLACE, and SELECT, but not DELETE or UPDATE. It does support ORDER BY operations, BLOB columns, and basically all but spatial data types (see Section 11.5.1, “Spatial Data Types”). The ARCHIVE engine uses row-level locking.

The ARCHIVE engine supports the AUTO_INCREMENT column attribute. The AUTO_INCREMENT column can have either a unique or nonunique index. Attempting to create an index on any other column results in an error. The ARCHIVE engine also supports the AUTO_INCREMENT table option in CREATE TABLE statements to specify the initial sequence value for a new table or reset the sequence value for an existing table, respectively.

ARCHIVE does not support inserting a value into an AUTO_INCREMENT column less than the current maximum column value. Attempts to do so result in an ER_DUP_KEY error.

The ARCHIVE engine ignores BLOB columns if they are not requested and scans past them while reading.

Storage: Rows are compressed as they are inserted. The ARCHIVE engine uses zlib lossless data compression (see http://www.zlib.net/). You can use OPTIMIZE TABLE to analyze the table and pack it into a smaller format (for a reason to use OPTIMIZE TABLE, see later in this section). The engine also supports CHECK TABLE. There are several types of insertions that are used:

  • An INSERT statement just pushes rows into a compression buffer, and that buffer flushes as necessary. The insertion into the buffer is protected by a lock. A SELECT forces a flush to occur.

  • A bulk insert is visible only after it completes, unless other inserts occur at the same time, in which case it can be seen partially. A SELECT never causes a flush of a bulk insert unless a normal insert occurs while it is loading.

Retrieval: On retrieval, rows are uncompressed on demand; there is no row cache. A SELECT operation performs a complete table scan: When a SELECT occurs, it finds out how many rows are currently available and reads that number of rows. SELECT is performed as a consistent read. Note that lots of SELECT statements during insertion can deteriorate the compression, unless only bulk or delayed inserts are used. To achieve better compression, you can use OPTIMIZE TABLE or REPAIR TABLE. The number of rows in ARCHIVE tables reported by SHOW TABLE STATUS is always accurate. See Section 13.7.2.4, “OPTIMIZE TABLE Syntax”, Section 13.7.2.5, “REPAIR TABLE Syntax”, and Section 13.7.5.36, “SHOW TABLE STATUS Syntax”.

Additional Resources

15.6 The BLACKHOLE Storage Engine

The BLACKHOLE storage engine acts as a black hole that accepts data but throws it away and does not store it. Retrievals always return an empty result:

mysql> CREATE TABLE test(i INT, c CHAR(10)) ENGINE = BLACKHOLE;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.03 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES(1,'record one'),(2,'record two');
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM test;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

To enable the BLACKHOLE storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke CMake with the -DWITH_BLACKHOLE_STORAGE_ENGINE option.

To examine the source for the BLACKHOLE engine, look in the sql directory of a MySQL source distribution.

When you create a BLACKHOLE table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. There are no other files associated with the table.

The BLACKHOLE storage engine supports all kinds of indexes. That is, you can include index declarations in the table definition.

You can check whether the BLACKHOLE storage engine is available with the SHOW ENGINES statement.

Inserts into a BLACKHOLE table do not store any data, but if statement based binary logging is enabled, the SQL statements are logged and replicated to slave servers. This can be useful as a repeater or filter mechanism.

Suppose that your application requires slave-side filtering rules, but transferring all binary log data to the slave first results in too much traffic. In such a case, it is possible to set up on the master host a dummy slave process whose default storage engine is BLACKHOLE, depicted as follows:

Figure 15.1 Replication using BLACKHOLE for Filtering

Replication using BLACKHOLE for filtering

The master writes to its binary log. The dummy mysqld process acts as a slave, applying the desired combination of replicate-do-* and replicate-ignore-* rules, and writes a new, filtered binary log of its own. (See Section 16.1.6, “Replication and Binary Logging Options and Variables”.) This filtered log is provided to the slave.

The dummy process does not actually store any data, so there is little processing overhead incurred by running the additional mysqld process on the replication master host. This type of setup can be repeated with additional replication slaves.

INSERT triggers for BLACKHOLE tables work as expected. However, because the BLACKHOLE table does not actually store any data, UPDATE and DELETE triggers are not activated: The FOR EACH ROW clause in the trigger definition does not apply because there are no rows.

Other possible uses for the BLACKHOLE storage engine include:

  • Verification of dump file syntax.

  • Measurement of the overhead from binary logging, by comparing performance using BLACKHOLE with and without binary logging enabled.

  • BLACKHOLE is essentially a no-op storage engine, so it could be used for finding performance bottlenecks not related to the storage engine itself.

The BLACKHOLE engine is transaction-aware, in the sense that committed transactions are written to the binary log and rolled-back transactions are not.

Blackhole Engine and Auto Increment Columns

The Blackhole engine is a no-op engine. Any operations performed on a table using Blackhole will have no effect. This should be born in mind when considering the behavior of primary key columns that auto increment. The engine will not automatically increment field values, and does not retain auto increment field state. This has important implications in replication.

Consider the following replication scenario where all three of the following conditions apply:

  1. On a master server there is a blackhole table with an auto increment field that is a primary key.

  2. On a slave the same table exists but using the MyISAM engine.

  3. Inserts are performed into the master's table without explicitly setting the auto increment value in the INSERT statement itself or through using a SET INSERT_ID statement.

In this scenario replication will fail with a duplicate entry error on the primary key column.

In statement based replication, the value of INSERT_ID in the context event will always be the same. Replication will therefore fail due to trying insert a row with a duplicate value for a primary key column.

In row based replication, the value that the engine returns for the row always be the same for each insert. This will result in the slave attempting to replay two insert log entries using the same value for the primary key column, and so replication will fail.

Column Filtering

When using row-based replication, (binlog_format=ROW), a slave where the last columns are missing from a table is supported, as described in the section Section 16.4.1.10, “Replication with Differing Table Definitions on Master and Slave”.

This filtering works on the slave side, that is, the columns are copied to the slave before they are filtered out. There are at least two cases where it is not desirable to copy the columns to the slave:

  1. If the data is confidential, so the slave server should not have access to it.

  2. If the master has many slaves, filtering before sending to the slaves may reduce network traffic.

Master column filtering can be achieved using the BLACKHOLE engine. This is carried out in a way similar to how master table filtering is achieved - by using the BLACKHOLE engine and the --replicate-do-table or --replicate-ignore-table option.

The setup for the master is:

CREATE TABLE t1 (public_col_1, ..., public_col_N,
                 secret_col_1, ..., secret_col_M) ENGINE=MyISAM;

The setup for the trusted slave is:

CREATE TABLE t1 (public_col_1, ..., public_col_N) ENGINE=BLACKHOLE;

The setup for the untrusted slave is:

CREATE TABLE t1 (public_col_1, ..., public_col_N) ENGINE=MyISAM;

15.7 The MERGE Storage Engine

The MERGE storage engine, also known as the MRG_MyISAM engine, is a collection of identical MyISAM tables that can be used as one. Identical means that all tables have identical column data types and index information. You cannot merge MyISAM tables in which the columns are listed in a different order, do not have exactly the same data types in corresponding columns, or have the indexes in different order. However, any or all of the MyISAM tables can be compressed with myisampack. See Section 4.6.5, “myisampack — Generate Compressed, Read-Only MyISAM Tables”. Differences between tables such as these do not matter:

  • Names of corresponding columns and indexes can differ.

  • Comments for tables, columns, and indexes can differ.

  • Table options such as AVG_ROW_LENGTH, MAX_ROWS, or PACK_KEYS can differ.

An alternative to a MERGE table is a partitioned table, which stores partitions of a single table in separate files. Partitioning enables some operations to be performed more efficiently and is not limited to the MyISAM storage engine. For more information, see Chapter 22, Partitioning.

When you create a MERGE table, MySQL creates two files on disk. The files have names that begin with the table name and have an extension to indicate the file type. An .frm file stores the table format, and an .MRG file contains the names of the underlying MyISAM tables that should be used as one. The tables do not have to be in the same database as the MERGE table.

You can use SELECT, DELETE, UPDATE, and INSERT on MERGE tables. You must have SELECT, DELETE, and UPDATE privileges on the MyISAM tables that you map to a MERGE table.

Note

The use of MERGE tables entails the following security issue: If a user has access to MyISAM table t, that user can create a MERGE table m that accesses t. However, if the user's privileges on t are subsequently revoked, the user can continue to access t by doing so through m.

Use of DROP TABLE with a MERGE table drops only the MERGE specification. The underlying tables are not affected.

To create a MERGE table, you must specify a UNION=(list-of-tables) option that indicates which MyISAM tables to use. You can optionally specify an INSERT_METHOD option to control how inserts into the MERGE table take place. Use a value of FIRST or LAST to cause inserts to be made in the first or last underlying table, respectively. If you specify no INSERT_METHOD option or if you specify it with a value of NO, inserts into the MERGE table are not permitted and attempts to do so result in an error.

The following example shows how to create a MERGE table:

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (
    ->    a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    ->    message CHAR(20)) ENGINE=MyISAM;
mysql> CREATE TABLE t2 (
    ->    a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    ->    message CHAR(20)) ENGINE=MyISAM;
mysql> INSERT INTO t1 (message) VALUES ('Testing'),('table'),('t1');
mysql> INSERT INTO t2 (message) VALUES ('Testing'),('table'),('t2');
mysql> CREATE TABLE total (
    ->    a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    ->    message CHAR(20), INDEX(a))
    ->    ENGINE=MERGE UNION=(t1,t2) INSERT_METHOD=LAST;

Column a is indexed as a PRIMARY KEY in the underlying MyISAM tables, but not in the MERGE table. There it is indexed but not as a PRIMARY KEY because a MERGE table cannot enforce uniqueness over the set of underlying tables. (Similarly, a column with a UNIQUE index in the underlying tables should be indexed in the MERGE table but not as a UNIQUE index.)

After creating the MERGE table, you can use it to issue queries that operate on the group of tables as a whole:

mysql> SELECT * FROM total;
+---+---------+
| a | message |
+---+---------+
| 1 | Testing |
| 2 | table   |
| 3 | t1      |
| 1 | Testing |
| 2 | table   |
| 3 | t2      |
+---+---------+

To remap a MERGE table to a different collection of MyISAM tables, you can use one of the following methods:

  • DROP the MERGE table and re-create it.

  • Use ALTER TABLE tbl_name UNION=(...) to change the list of underlying tables.

    It is also possible to use ALTER TABLE ... UNION=() (that is, with an empty UNION clause) to remove all of the underlying tables. However, in this case, the table is effectively empty and inserts fail because there is no underlying table to take new rows. Such a table might be useful as a template for creating new MERGE tables with CREATE TABLE ... LIKE.

The underlying table definitions and indexes must conform closely to the definition of the MERGE table. Conformance is checked when a table that is part of a MERGE table is opened, not when the MERGE table is created. If any table fails the conformance checks, the operation that triggered the opening of the table fails. This means that changes to the definitions of tables within a MERGE may cause a failure when the MERGE table is accessed. The conformance checks applied to each table are:

  • The underlying table and the MERGE table must have the same number of columns.

  • The column order in the underlying table and the MERGE table must match.

  • Additionally, the specification for each corresponding column in the parent MERGE table and the underlying tables are compared and must satisfy these checks:

    • The column type in the underlying table and the MERGE table must be equal.

    • The column length in the underlying table and the MERGE table must be equal.

    • The column of the underlying table and the MERGE table can be NULL.

  • The underlying table must have at least as many indexes as the MERGE table. The underlying table may have more indexes than the MERGE table, but cannot have fewer.

    Note

    A known issue exists where indexes on the same columns must be in identical order, in both the MERGE table and the underlying MyISAM table. See Bug #33653.

    Each index must satisfy these checks:

    • The index type of the underlying table and the MERGE table must be the same.

    • The number of index parts (that is, multiple columns within a compound index) in the index definition for the underlying table and the MERGE table must be the same.

    • For each index part:

      • Index part lengths must be equal.

      • Index part types must be equal.

      • Index part languages must be equal.

      • Check whether index parts can be NULL.

If a MERGE table cannot be opened or used because of a problem with an underlying table, CHECK TABLE displays information about which table caused the problem.

Additional Resources

15.7.1 MERGE Table Advantages and Disadvantages

MERGE tables can help you solve the following problems:

  • Easily manage a set of log tables. For example, you can put data from different months into separate tables, compress some of them with myisampack, and then create a MERGE table to use them as one.

  • Obtain more speed. You can split a large read-only table based on some criteria, and then put individual tables on different disks. A MERGE table structured this way could be much faster than using a single large table.

  • Perform more efficient searches. If you know exactly what you are looking for, you can search in just one of the underlying tables for some queries and use a MERGE table for others. You can even have many different MERGE tables that use overlapping sets of tables.

  • Perform more efficient repairs. It is easier to repair individual smaller tables that are mapped to a MERGE table than to repair a single large table.

  • Instantly map many tables as one. A MERGE table need not maintain an index of its own because it uses the indexes of the individual tables. As a result, MERGE table collections are very fast to create or remap. (You must still specify the index definitions when you create a MERGE table, even though no indexes are created.)

  • If you have a set of tables from which you create a large table on demand, you can instead create a MERGE table from them on demand. This is much faster and saves a lot of disk space.

  • Exceed the file size limit for the operating system. Each MyISAM table is bound by this limit, but a collection of MyISAM tables is not.

  • You can create an alias or synonym for a MyISAM table by defining a MERGE table that maps to that single table. There should be no really notable performance impact from doing this (only a couple of indirect calls and memcpy() calls for each read).

The disadvantages of MERGE tables are:

  • You can use only identical MyISAM tables for a MERGE table.

  • Some MyISAM features are unavailable in MERGE tables. For example, you cannot create FULLTEXT indexes on MERGE tables. (You can create FULLTEXT indexes on the underlying MyISAM tables, but you cannot search the MERGE table with a full-text search.)

  • If the MERGE table is nontemporary, all underlying MyISAM tables must be nontemporary. If the MERGE table is temporary, the MyISAM tables can be any mix of temporary and nontemporary.

  • MERGE tables use more file descriptors than MyISAM tables. If 10 clients are using a MERGE table that maps to 10 tables, the server uses (10 × 10) + 10 file descriptors. (10 data file descriptors for each of the 10 clients, and 10 index file descriptors shared among the clients.)

  • Index reads are slower. When you read an index, the MERGE storage engine needs to issue a read on all underlying tables to check which one most closely matches a given index value. To read the next index value, the MERGE storage engine needs to search the read buffers to find the next value. Only when one index buffer is used up does the storage engine need to read the next index block. This makes MERGE indexes much slower on eq_ref searches, but not much slower on ref searches. For more information about eq_ref and ref, see Section 13.8.2, “EXPLAIN Syntax”.

15.7.2 MERGE Table Problems

The following are known problems with MERGE tables:

  • In versions of MySQL Server prior to 5.1.23, it was possible to create temporary merge tables with nontemporary child MyISAM tables.

    From versions 5.1.23, MERGE children were locked through the parent table. If the parent was temporary, it was not locked and so the children were not locked either. Parallel use of the MyISAM tables corrupted them.

  • If you use ALTER TABLE to change a MERGE table to another storage engine, the mapping to the underlying tables is lost. Instead, the rows from the underlying MyISAM tables are copied into the altered table, which then uses the specified storage engine.

  • The INSERT_METHOD table option for a MERGE table indicates which underlying MyISAM table to use for inserts into the MERGE table. However, use of the AUTO_INCREMENT table option for that MyISAM table has no effect for inserts into the MERGE table until at least one row has been inserted directly into the MyISAM table.

  • A MERGE table cannot maintain uniqueness constraints over the entire table. When you perform an INSERT, the data goes into the first or last MyISAM table (as determined by the INSERT_METHOD option). MySQL ensures that unique key values remain unique within that MyISAM table, but not over all the underlying tables in the collection.

  • Because the MERGE engine cannot enforce uniqueness over the set of underlying tables, REPLACE does not work as expected. The two key facts are:

    • REPLACE can detect unique key violations only in the underlying table to which it is going to write (which is determined by the INSERT_METHOD option). This differs from violations in the MERGE table itself.

    • If REPLACE detects a unique key violation, it will change only the corresponding row in the underlying table it is writing to; that is, the first or last table, as determined by the INSERT_METHOD option.

    Similar considerations apply for INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE.

  • MERGE tables do not support partitioning. That is, you cannot partition a MERGE table, nor can any of a MERGE table's underlying MyISAM tables be partitioned.

  • You should not use ANALYZE TABLE, REPAIR TABLE, OPTIMIZE TABLE, ALTER TABLE, DROP TABLE, DELETE without a WHERE clause, or TRUNCATE TABLE on any of the tables that are mapped into an open MERGE table. If you do so, the MERGE table may still refer to the original table and yield unexpected results. To work around this problem, ensure that no MERGE tables remain open by issuing a FLUSH TABLES statement prior to performing any of the named operations.

    The unexpected results include the possibility that the operation on the MERGE table will report table corruption. If this occurs after one of the named operations on the underlying MyISAM tables, the corruption message is spurious. To deal with this, issue a FLUSH TABLES statement after modifying the MyISAM tables.

  • DROP TABLE on a table that is in use by a MERGE table does not work on Windows because the MERGE storage engine's table mapping is hidden from the upper layer of MySQL. Windows does not permit open files to be deleted, so you first must flush all MERGE tables (with FLUSH TABLES) or drop the MERGE table before dropping the table.

  • The definition of the MyISAM tables and the MERGE table are checked when the tables are accessed (for example, as part of a SELECT or INSERT statement). The checks ensure that the definitions of the tables and the parent MERGE table definition match by comparing column order, types, sizes and associated indexes. If there is a difference between the tables, an error is returned and the statement fails. Because these checks take place when the tables are opened, any changes to the definition of a single table, including column changes, column ordering, and engine alterations will cause the statement to fail.

  • The order of indexes in the MERGE table and its underlying tables should be the same. If you use ALTER TABLE to add a UNIQUE index to a table used in a MERGE table, and then use ALTER TABLE to add a nonunique index on the MERGE table, the index ordering is different for the tables if there was already a nonunique index in the underlying table. (This happens because ALTER TABLE puts UNIQUE indexes before nonunique indexes to facilitate rapid detection of duplicate keys.) Consequently, queries on tables with such indexes may return unexpected results.

  • If you encounter an error message similar to ERROR 1017 (HY000): Can't find file: 'tbl_name.MRG' (errno: 2), it generally indicates that some of the underlying tables do not use the MyISAM storage engine. Confirm that all of these tables are MyISAM.

  • The maximum number of rows in a MERGE table is 264 (~1.844E+19; the same as for a MyISAM table). It is not possible to merge multiple MyISAM tables into a single MERGE table that would have more than this number of rows.

  • Use of underlying MyISAM tables of differing row formats with a parent MERGE table is currently known to fail. See Bug #32364.

  • You cannot change the union list of a nontemporary MERGE table when LOCK TABLES is in effect. The following does not work:

    CREATE TABLE m1 ... ENGINE=MRG_MYISAM ...;
    LOCK TABLES t1 WRITE, t2 WRITE, m1 WRITE;
    ALTER TABLE m1 ... UNION=(t1,t2) ...;
    

    However, you can do this with a temporary MERGE table.

  • You cannot create a MERGE table with CREATE ... SELECT, neither as a temporary MERGE table, nor as a nontemporary MERGE table. For example:

    CREATE TABLE m1 ... ENGINE=MRG_MYISAM ... SELECT ...;

    Attempts to do this result in an error: tbl_name is not BASE TABLE.

  • In some cases, differing PACK_KEYS table option values among the MERGE and underlying tables cause unexpected results if the underlying tables contain CHAR or BINARY columns. As a workaround, use ALTER TABLE to ensure that all involved tables have the same PACK_KEYS value. (Bug #50646)

15.8 The FEDERATED Storage Engine

The FEDERATED storage engine lets you access data from a remote MySQL database without using replication or cluster technology. Querying a local FEDERATED table automatically pulls the data from the remote (federated) tables. No data is stored on the local tables.

To include the FEDERATED storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke CMake with the -DWITH_FEDERATED_STORAGE_ENGINE option.

The FEDERATED storage engine is not enabled by default in the running server; to enable FEDERATED, you must start the MySQL server binary using the --federated option.

To examine the source for the FEDERATED engine, look in the storage/federated directory of a MySQL source distribution.

15.8.1 FEDERATED Storage Engine Overview

When you create a table using one of the standard storage engines (such as MyISAM, CSV or InnoDB), the table consists of the table definition and the associated data. When you create a FEDERATED table, the table definition is the same, but the physical storage of the data is handled on a remote server.

A FEDERATED table consists of two elements:

  • A remote server with a database table, which in turn consists of the table definition (stored in the .frm file) and the associated table. The table type of the remote table may be any type supported by the remote mysqld server, including MyISAM or InnoDB.

  • A local server with a database table, where the table definition matches that of the corresponding table on the remote server. The table definition is stored within the .frm file. However, there is no data file on the local server. Instead, the table definition includes a connection string that points to the remote table.

When executing queries and statements on a FEDERATED table on the local server, the operations that would normally insert, update or delete information from a local data file are instead sent to the remote server for execution, where they update the data file on the remote server or return matching rows from the remote server.

The basic structure of a FEDERATED table setup is shown in Figure 15.2, “FEDERATED Table Structure”.

Figure 15.2 FEDERATED Table Structure

Content is described in the surrounding text.

When a client issues an SQL statement that refers to a FEDERATED table, the flow of information between the local server (where the SQL statement is executed) and the remote server (where the data is physically stored) is as follows:

  1. The storage engine looks through each column that the FEDERATED table has and constructs an appropriate SQL statement that refers to the remote table.

  2. The statement is sent to the remote server using the MySQL client API.

  3. The remote server processes the statement and the local server retrieves any result that the statement produces (an affected-rows count or a result set).

  4. If the statement produces a result set, each column is converted to internal storage engine format that the FEDERATED engine expects and can use to display the result to the client that issued the original statement.

The local server communicates with the remote server using MySQL client C API functions. It invokes mysql_real_query() to send the statement. To read a result set, it uses mysql_store_result() and fetches rows one at a time using mysql_fetch_row().

15.8.2 How to Create FEDERATED Tables

To create a FEDERATED table you should follow these steps:

  1. Create the table on the remote server. Alternatively, make a note of the table definition of an existing table, perhaps using the SHOW CREATE TABLE statement.

  2. Create the table on the local server with an identical table definition, but adding the connection information that links the local table to the remote table.

For example, you could create the following table on the remote server:

CREATE TABLE test_table (
    id     INT(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    name   VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    other  INT(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    PRIMARY KEY  (id),
    INDEX name (name),
    INDEX other_key (other)
)
ENGINE=MyISAM
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

To create the local table that will be federated to the remote table, there are two options available. You can either create the local table and specify the connection string (containing the server name, login, password) to be used to connect to the remote table using the CONNECTION, or you can use an existing connection that you have previously created using the CREATE SERVER statement.

Important

When you create the local table it must have an identical field definition to the remote table.

Note

You can improve the performance of a FEDERATED table by adding indexes to the table on the host. The optimization will occur because the query sent to the remote server will include the contents of the WHERE clause and will be sent to the remote server and subsequently executed locally. This reduces the network traffic that would otherwise request the entire table from the server for local processing.

15.8.2.1 Creating a FEDERATED Table Using CONNECTION

To use the first method, you must specify the CONNECTION string after the engine type in a CREATE TABLE statement. For example:

CREATE TABLE federated_table (
    id     INT(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    name   VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    other  INT(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    PRIMARY KEY  (id),
    INDEX name (name),
    INDEX other_key (other)
)
ENGINE=FEDERATED
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
CONNECTION='mysql://fed_user@remote_host:9306/federated/test_table';
Note

CONNECTION replaces the COMMENT used in some previous versions of MySQL.

The CONNECTION string contains the information required to connect to the remote server containing the table that will be used to physically store the data. The connection string specifies the server name, login credentials, port number and database/table information. In the example, the remote table is on the server remote_host, using port 9306. The name and port number should match the host name (or IP address) and port number of the remote MySQL server instance you want to use as your remote table.

The format of the connection string is as follows:

scheme://user_name[:password]@host_name[:port_num]/db_name/tbl_name

Where:

  • scheme: A recognized connection protocol. Only mysql is supported as the scheme value at this point.

  • user_name: The user name for the connection. This user must have been created on the remote server, and must have suitable privileges to perform the required actions (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and so forth) on the remote table.

  • password: (Optional) The corresponding password for user_name.

  • host_name: The host name or IP address of the remote server.

  • port_num: (Optional) The port number for the remote server. The default is 3306.

  • db_name: The name of the database holding the remote table.

  • tbl_name: The name of the remote table. The name of the local and the remote table do not have to match.

Sample connection strings:

CONNECTION='mysql://username:password@hostname:port/database/tablename'
CONNECTION='mysql://username@hostname/database/tablename'
CONNECTION='mysql://username:password@hostname/database/tablename'

15.8.2.2 Creating a FEDERATED Table Using CREATE SERVER

If you are creating a number of FEDERATED tables on the same server, or if you want to simplify the process of creating FEDERATED tables, you can use the CREATE SERVER statement to define the server connection parameters, just as you would with the CONNECTION string.

The format of the CREATE SERVER statement is:

CREATE SERVER
server_name
FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER wrapper_name
OPTIONS (option [, option] ...)

The server_name is used in the connection string when creating a new FEDERATED table.

For example, to create a server connection identical to the CONNECTION string:

CONNECTION='mysql://fed_user@remote_host:9306/federated/test_table';

You would use the following statement:

CREATE SERVER fedlink
FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER mysql
OPTIONS (USER 'fed_user', HOST 'remote_host', PORT 9306, DATABASE 'federated');

To create a FEDERATED table that uses this connection, you still use the CONNECTION keyword, but specify the name you used in the CREATE SERVER statement.

CREATE TABLE test_table (
    id     INT(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    name   VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    other  INT(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
    PRIMARY KEY  (id),
    INDEX name (name),
    INDEX other_key (other)
)
ENGINE=FEDERATED
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
CONNECTION='fedlink/test_table';

The connection name in this example contains the name of the connection (fedlink) and the name of the table (test_table) to link to, separated by a slash. If you specify only the connection name without a table name, the table name of the local table is used instead.

For more information on CREATE SERVER, see Section 13.1.17, “CREATE SERVER Syntax”.

The CREATE SERVER statement accepts the same arguments as the CONNECTION string. The CREATE SERVER statement updates the rows in the mysql.servers table. See the following table for information on the correspondence between parameters in a connection string, options in the CREATE SERVER statement, and the columns in the mysql.servers table. For reference, the format of the CONNECTION string is as follows:

scheme://user_name[:password]@host_name[:port_num]/db_name/tbl_name
Description CONNECTION string CREATE SERVER option mysql.servers column
Connection scheme scheme wrapper_name Wrapper
Remote user user_name USER Username
Remote password password PASSWORD Password
Remote host host_name HOST Host
Remote port port_num PORT Port
Remote database db_name DATABASE Db

15.8.3 FEDERATED Storage Engine Notes and Tips

You should be aware of the following points when using the FEDERATED storage engine:

  • FEDERATED tables may be replicated to other slaves, but you must ensure that the slave servers are able to use the user/password combination that is defined in the CONNECTION string (or the row in the mysql.servers table) to connect to the remote server.

The following items indicate features that the FEDERATED storage engine does and does not support:

  • The remote server must be a MySQL server.

  • The remote table that a FEDERATED table points to must exist before you try to access the table through the FEDERATED table.

  • It is possible for one FEDERATED table to point to another, but you must be careful not to create a loop.

  • A FEDERATED table does not support indexes in the usual sense; because access to the table data is handled remotely, it is actually the remote table that makes use of indexes. This means that, for a query that cannot use any indexes and so requires a full table scan, the server fetches all rows from the remote table and filters them locally. This occurs regardless of any WHERE or LIMIT used with this SELECT statement; these clauses are applied locally to the returned rows.

    Queries that fail to use indexes can thus cause poor performance and network overload. In addition, since returned rows must be stored in memory, such a query can also lead to the local server swapping, or even hanging.

  • Care should be taken when creating a FEDERATED table since the index definition from an equivalent MyISAM or other table may not be supported. For example, creating a FEDERATED table with an index prefix on VARCHAR, TEXT or BLOB columns will fail. The following definition in MyISAM is valid:

    CREATE TABLE `T1`(`A` VARCHAR(100),UNIQUE KEY(`A`(30))) ENGINE=MYISAM;

    The key prefix in this example is incompatible with the FEDERATED engine, and the equivalent statement will fail:

    CREATE TABLE `T1`(`A` VARCHAR(100),UNIQUE KEY(`A`(30))) ENGINE=FEDERATED
      CONNECTION='MYSQL://127.0.0.1:3306/TEST/T1';

    If possible, you should try to separate the column and index definition when creating tables on both the remote server and the local server to avoid these index issues.

  • Internally, the implementation uses SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE, but not HANDLER.

  • The FEDERATED storage engine supports SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, TRUNCATE TABLE, and indexes. It does not support ALTER TABLE, or any Data Definition Language statements that directly affect the structure of the table, other than DROP TABLE. The current implementation does not use prepared statements.

  • FEDERATED accepts INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE statements, but if a duplicate-key violation occurs, the statement fails with an error.

  • Transactions are not supported.

  • FEDERATED performs bulk-insert handling such that multiple rows are sent to the remote table in a batch, which improves performance. Also, if the remote table is transactional, it enables the remote storage engine to perform statement rollback properly should an error occur. This capability has the following limitations:

    • The size of the insert cannot exceed the maximum packet size between servers. If the insert exceeds this size, it is broken into multiple packets and the rollback problem can occur.

    • Bulk-insert handling does not occur for INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE.

  • There is no way for the FEDERATED engine to know if the remote table has changed. The reason for this is that this table must work like a data file that would never be written to by anything other than the database system. The integrity of the data in the local table could be breached if there was any change to the remote database.

  • When using a CONNECTION string, you cannot use an '@' character in the password. You can get round this limitation by using the CREATE SERVER statement to create a server connection.

  • The insert_id and timestamp options are not propagated to the data provider.

  • Any DROP TABLE statement issued against a FEDERATED table drops only the local table, not the remote table.

  • FEDERATED tables do not work with the query cache.

  • User-defined partitioning is not supported for FEDERATED tables.

15.8.4 FEDERATED Storage Engine Resources

The following additional resources are available for the FEDERATED storage engine:

15.9 The EXAMPLE Storage Engine

The EXAMPLE storage engine is a stub engine that does nothing. Its purpose is to serve as an example in the MySQL source code that illustrates how to begin writing new storage engines. As such, it is primarily of interest to developers.

To enable the EXAMPLE storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke CMake with the -DWITH_EXAMPLE_STORAGE_ENGINE option.

To examine the source for the EXAMPLE engine, look in the storage/example directory of a MySQL source distribution.

When you create an EXAMPLE table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. No other files are created. No data can be stored into the table. Retrievals return an empty result.

mysql> CREATE TABLE test (i INT) ENGINE = EXAMPLE;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.78 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES(1),(2),(3);
ERROR 1031 (HY000): Table storage engine for 'test' doesn't »
                    have this option

mysql> SELECT * FROM test;
Empty set (0.31 sec)

The EXAMPLE storage engine does not support indexing.

15.10 Other Storage Engines

Other storage engines may be available from third parties and community members that have used the Custom Storage Engine interface.

Third party engines are not supported by MySQL. For further information, documentation, installation guides, bug reporting or for any help or assistance with these engines, please contact the developer of the engine directly.

For more information on developing a customer storage engine that can be used with the Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture, see MySQL Internals: Writing a Custom Storage Engine.

15.11 Overview of MySQL Storage Engine Architecture

The MySQL pluggable storage engine architecture enables a database professional to select a specialized storage engine for a particular application need while being completely shielded from the need to manage any specific application coding requirements. The MySQL server architecture isolates the application programmer and DBA from all of the low-level implementation details at the storage level, providing a consistent and easy application model and API. Thus, although there are different capabilities across different storage engines, the application is shielded from these differences.

The pluggable storage engine architecture provides a standard set of management and support services that are common among all underlying storage engines. The storage engines themselves are the components of the database server that actually perform actions on the underlying data that is maintained at the physical server level.

This efficient and modular architecture provides huge benefits for those wishing to specifically target a particular application need—such as data warehousing, transaction processing, or high availability situations—while enjoying the advantage of utilizing a set of interfaces and services that are independent of any one storage engine.

The application programmer and DBA interact with the MySQL database through Connector APIs and service layers that are above the storage engines. If application changes bring about requirements that demand the underlying storage engine change, or that one or more storage engines be added to support new needs, no significant coding or process changes are required to make things work. The MySQL server architecture shields the application from the underlying complexity of the storage engine by presenting a consistent and easy-to-use API that applies across storage engines.

15.11.1 Pluggable Storage Engine Architecture

MySQL Server uses a pluggable storage engine architecture that enables storage engines to be loaded into and unloaded from a running MySQL server.

Plugging in a Storage Engine

Before a storage engine can be used, the storage engine plugin shared library must be loaded into MySQL using the INSTALL PLUGIN statement. For example, if the EXAMPLE engine plugin is named example and the shared library is named ha_example.so, you load it with the following statement:

INSTALL PLUGIN example SONAME 'ha_example.so';

To install a pluggable storage engine, the plugin file must be located in the MySQL plugin directory, and the user issuing the INSTALL PLUGIN statement must have INSERT privilege for the mysql.plugin table.

The shared library must be located in the MySQL server plugin directory, the location of which is given by the plugin_dir system variable.

Unplugging a Storage Engine

To unplug a storage engine, use the UNINSTALL PLUGIN statement:

UNINSTALL PLUGIN example;

If you unplug a storage engine that is needed by existing tables, those tables become inaccessible, but will still be present on disk (where applicable). Ensure that there are no tables using a storage engine before you unplug the storage engine.

15.11.2 The Common Database Server Layer

A MySQL pluggable storage engine is the component in the MySQL database server that is responsible for performing the actual data I/O operations for a database as well as enabling and enforcing certain feature sets that target a specific application need. A major benefit of using specific storage engines is that you are only delivered the features needed for a particular application, and therefore you have less system overhead in the database, with the end result being more efficient and higher database performance. This is one of the reasons that MySQL has always been known to have such high performance, matching or beating proprietary monolithic databases in industry standard benchmarks.

From a technical perspective, what are some of the unique supporting infrastructure components that are in a storage engine? Some of the key feature differentiations include:

  • Concurrency: Some applications have more granular lock requirements (such as row-level locks) than others. Choosing the right locking strategy can reduce overhead and therefore improve overall performance. This area also includes support for capabilities such as multi-version concurrency control or snapshot read.

  • Transaction Support: Not every application needs transactions, but for those that do, there are very well defined requirements such as ACID compliance and more.

  • Referential Integrity: The need to have the server enforce relational database referential integrity through DDL defined foreign keys.

  • Physical Storage: This involves everything from the overall page size for tables and indexes as well as the format used for storing data to physical disk.

  • Index Support: Different application scenarios tend to benefit from different index strategies. Each storage engine generally has its own indexing methods, although some (such as B-tree indexes) are common to nearly all engines.

  • Memory Caches: Different applications respond better to some memory caching strategies than others, so although some memory caches are common to all storage engines (such as those used for user connections or MySQL's high-speed Query Cache), others are uniquely defined only when a particular storage engine is put in play.

  • Performance Aids: This includes multiple I/O threads for parallel operations, thread concurrency, database checkpointing, bulk insert handling, and more.

  • Miscellaneous Target Features: This may include support for geospatial operations, security restrictions for certain data manipulation operations, and other similar features.

Each set of the pluggable storage engine infrastructure components are designed to offer a selective set of benefits for a particular application. Conversely, avoiding a set of component features helps reduce unnecessary overhead. It stands to reason that understanding a particular application's set of requirements and selecting the proper MySQL storage engine can have a dramatic impact on overall system efficiency and performance.