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@c Copyright 1998 TcX AB, Detron HB and Monty Program KB
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@settitle @strong{MySQL} internals Manual for version @value{mysql_version}.
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* mysql-internals: (mysql-internals).               @strong{MySQL} internals.
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@titlepage
@sp 10
@center @titlefont{@strong{MySQL} Internals Manual.}
@sp 10
@center Copyright @copyright{} 1998 TcX AB, Detron HB and Monty Program KB
@end titlepage

@node Top, Introduction, (dir), (dir)

@ifinfo
This is a manual about @strong{MySQL} internals.
@end ifinfo

@menu
@end menu

@node caching
@chapter How MySQL handles caching

MySQL has the following caches:
(Note that the some of the filename have a wrong spelling of cache. :)

@itemize @bullet
@item Key cache
A shared cache for all B-tree index blocks in the different NISAM
files. Uses hashing and reverse linked lists for quick caching of the
last used blocks and quick flushing of changed entries for a specific
table. mysys/mf_keycash.c

@item Record cache
This is used for quick scanning of all records in a table.
mysys/mf_iocash.c and isam/_cash.c

@item Table cache
This holds the last used tables. sql/sql_base.cc

@item Hostname cache
For quick lookup (with reverse name resolving). Is a must when one has a
slow DNS. sql/hostname.cc

@item Privilege cache
To allow quick change between databases the last used privileges are
cached for each user/database combination. sql/sql_acl.cc

@item Heap table cache
Many use of GROUP BY or DISTINCT caches all found
rows in a HEAP table (this is a very quick in-memory table with hash index)

@item Join row cache.
For every full join in a SELECT statement (a full join here means there
were no keys that one could use to find the next table in a list), the
found rows are cached in a join cache.  One SELECT query can use many
join caches in the worst case.
@end itemize

@node flush tables
@chapter How MySQL handles flush tables

@itemize @bullet
@item
Flush tables is handled in sql/sql_base.cc::close_cached_tables().
@Item
The idea of flush tables is to force all tables to be closed. This
is mainly to ensure that if someone adds a new table outside of
MySQL (for example with 'cp') all threads will start using the new table.
This will also ensure that all table changes are flushed to disk
(but of course not as optimally as simple calling a sync on all tables)!
@item
When one does a 'flush tables', the variable 'refresh_version' will
be incremented. Every time a thread releases a table it checks if
the refresh version of the table (updated at open) is the same as
the current refresh_version.  If not it will close it and broadcast
a signal on COND_refresh (to wait any thread that is waiting for
all instanses of a table to be closed).
@item
The current refresh_version is also compared to the open refresh_version
after a thread gets a lock on a table.  If the refresh version is
different the thread will free all locks, reopen the table and try
to get the locks again;  This is just to quickly get all tables to
use the newest version.  This is handled by
sql/lock.cc::mysql_lock_tables() and sql/sql_base.cc::wait_for_tables().
@item
When all tables has been closed flush-tables will return an ok to client.
@item
If the thread that is doing flush-table has a lock on some tables,
it will first closes the locked tables, wait until all other threads
have also closed these and then reopen these and get the locks.
After this it will give other threads a possibility to open the
same tables.
@end itemize

@node Filesort
@chapter How MySQL does sorting (filesort)

- Read all rows according to key or by table-scanning.
- Store the sort-key in a buffer (sort_buffer).
- When the buffer gets full, run a qsort on it and store the result
  in a temporary file.  Save a pointer to the sorted block.
- Repeat the above until all rows have been read.

- Repeat the following until there is less than MERGEBUFF2 (15) blocks left.
  - Do a multi-merge of up to MERGEBUFF (7) regions to one block in
    another temporary file.  Repeat until all blocks from the first file
    are in the second file.
- On the last multi-merge, only the pointer to the row (last part of
  the sort-key) is written to a result file.

- Now the code in sql/records.cc will be used to read through them
  in sorted order by using the row pointers in the result file.
  To optimize this, we read in a big block of row pointers, sort these
  and then we read the rows in the sorted order into a row buffer
  (record_buffer) .

@node Coding guidelines
@chapter Coding guidelines

- We are using bitkeeper (www.bitkeeper.com) for source management.
- You should use the MySQL 3.23 or MySQL 4.0 source for all developments.
- If you have any questions about the MySQL source, you can post these
  to developers@mysql.com and we will answer them.
  Note that we will shortly change the name of this list to
  internals@mysql.com, to more accurately reflect what should be
  posted to this list.

- Try to write code in a lot of black boxes that can be reused or at
  least have a clean interface
- Reuse code;  There is already in MySQL a lot of algorithms for list handling,
  queues, dynamic and hashed arrays, sorting...) that can be reused.
- Try to always write optimized code, so that you don't have to
  go back and rewrite it a couple of months later.  It's better to
  spend 3 times as much time designing and writing and optimal function than
  having to do it all over again later on.
- Avoid CPU wasteful code, even where it does not matter, so that
  you will not develop sloppy coding habits.
- If you can write it in fewer lines, do it (as long as the code will not
  be slower or much harder to read)
- do not check the same pointer for NULL more than once.
- Use long function and variable names in English;  This makes your
  code easier to read.
- Think assembly - make it easier for the compiler to optimize your code.
- Comment your code when you do something that someone else may think
  is 'not trivial'.
- Use the my_ functions like my_read/my_write/my_malloc() that you can
  find in the mysys library instead of the direct system calls;  This
  will make your code easier to debug and more portable.
- use libstring functions instead of standard libc string functions
  whenever possible
- Avoid using alloc (its REAL slow);  For memory allocations that only
  needs to live for the lifetime of one thread, on should use
  sql_alloc() instead.
- Before doing big design decision, please first post a summary of
  what you want to do, why you want to do it and how you plan to do
  it.  This way we can easily provide you with feedback and also
  easily discuss is throughly if some other developer thinks there is better
  way to do the same thing!

- Use my_var as opposed to myVar or MyVar ( _ rather than dancing SHIFT
  to spearate words in identifiers)
- class names start with a capital 
- structure types are typedefed to all caps identifier
- #defines are capitalized
- matching { are in the same column
 - functions return 0 on success , non-zero on error, so you can do
  if(a() || b() || c()) { error("something went wrong");}
- goto is ok if not abused
- avoid default variable initalizations, use LINT_INIT() if the
  compiler complains after making sure that there is really no way
  the variable can be used uninitialized
- Do not instantiate a class if you do not have to
- Use pointers rather than array indexing when operating on strings


@node Index
@unnumbered Index

@printindex fn

@summarycontents
@contents

@bye