| Index: third_party/sqlite/ext/async/README.txt
|
| ===================================================================
|
| --- third_party/sqlite/ext/async/README.txt (revision 56608)
|
| +++ third_party/sqlite/ext/async/README.txt (working copy)
|
| @@ -1,164 +0,0 @@
|
| -
|
| -Normally, when SQLite writes to a database file, it waits until the write
|
| -operation is finished before returning control to the calling application.
|
| -Since writing to the file-system is usually very slow compared with CPU
|
| -bound operations, this can be a performance bottleneck. This directory
|
| -contains an extension that causes SQLite to perform all write requests
|
| -using a separate thread running in the background. Although this does not
|
| -reduce the overall system resources (CPU, disk bandwidth etc.) at all, it
|
| -allows SQLite to return control to the caller quickly even when writing to
|
| -the database, eliminating the bottleneck.
|
| -
|
| - 1. Functionality
|
| -
|
| - 1.1 How it Works
|
| - 1.2 Limitations
|
| - 1.3 Locking and Concurrency
|
| -
|
| - 2. Compilation and Usage
|
| -
|
| - 3. Porting
|
| -
|
| -
|
| -
|
| -1. FUNCTIONALITY
|
| -
|
| - With asynchronous I/O, write requests are handled by a separate thread
|
| - running in the background. This means that the thread that initiates
|
| - a database write does not have to wait for (sometimes slow) disk I/O
|
| - to occur. The write seems to happen very quickly, though in reality
|
| - it is happening at its usual slow pace in the background.
|
| -
|
| - Asynchronous I/O appears to give better responsiveness, but at a price.
|
| - You lose the Durable property. With the default I/O backend of SQLite,
|
| - once a write completes, you know that the information you wrote is
|
| - safely on disk. With the asynchronous I/O, this is not the case. If
|
| - your program crashes or if a power loss occurs after the database
|
| - write but before the asynchronous write thread has completed, then the
|
| - database change might never make it to disk and the next user of the
|
| - database might not see your change.
|
| -
|
| - You lose Durability with asynchronous I/O, but you still retain the
|
| - other parts of ACID: Atomic, Consistent, and Isolated. Many
|
| - appliations get along fine without the Durablity.
|
| -
|
| - 1.1 How it Works
|
| -
|
| - Asynchronous I/O works by creating a special SQLite "vfs" structure
|
| - and registering it with sqlite3_vfs_register(). When files opened via
|
| - this vfs are written to (using the vfs xWrite() method), the data is not
|
| - written directly to disk, but is placed in the "write-queue" to be
|
| - handled by the background thread.
|
| -
|
| - When files opened with the asynchronous vfs are read from
|
| - (using the vfs xRead() method), the data is read from the file on
|
| - disk and the write-queue, so that from the point of view of
|
| - the vfs reader the xWrite() appears to have already completed.
|
| -
|
| - The special vfs is registered (and unregistered) by calls to the
|
| - API functions sqlite3async_initialize() and sqlite3async_shutdown().
|
| - See section "Compilation and Usage" below for details.
|
| -
|
| - 1.2 Limitations
|
| -
|
| - In order to gain experience with the main ideas surrounding asynchronous
|
| - IO, this implementation is deliberately kept simple. Additional
|
| - capabilities may be added in the future.
|
| -
|
| - For example, as currently implemented, if writes are happening at a
|
| - steady stream that exceeds the I/O capability of the background writer
|
| - thread, the queue of pending write operations will grow without bound.
|
| - If this goes on for long enough, the host system could run out of memory.
|
| - A more sophisticated module could to keep track of the quantity of
|
| - pending writes and stop accepting new write requests when the queue of
|
| - pending writes grows too large.
|
| -
|
| - 1.3 Locking and Concurrency
|
| -
|
| - Multiple connections from within a single process that use this
|
| - implementation of asynchronous IO may access a single database
|
| - file concurrently. From the point of view of the user, if all
|
| - connections are from within a single process, there is no difference
|
| - between the concurrency offered by "normal" SQLite and SQLite
|
| - using the asynchronous backend.
|
| -
|
| - If file-locking is enabled (it is enabled by default), then connections
|
| - from multiple processes may also read and write the database file.
|
| - However concurrency is reduced as follows:
|
| -
|
| - * When a connection using asynchronous IO begins a database
|
| - transaction, the database is locked immediately. However the
|
| - lock is not released until after all relevant operations
|
| - in the write-queue have been flushed to disk. This means
|
| - (for example) that the database may remain locked for some
|
| - time after a "COMMIT" or "ROLLBACK" is issued.
|
| -
|
| - * If an application using asynchronous IO executes transactions
|
| - in quick succession, other database users may be effectively
|
| - locked out of the database. This is because when a BEGIN
|
| - is executed, a database lock is established immediately. But
|
| - when the corresponding COMMIT or ROLLBACK occurs, the lock
|
| - is not released until the relevant part of the write-queue
|
| - has been flushed through. As a result, if a COMMIT is followed
|
| - by a BEGIN before the write-queue is flushed through, the database
|
| - is never unlocked,preventing other processes from accessing
|
| - the database.
|
| -
|
| - File-locking may be disabled at runtime using the sqlite3async_control()
|
| - API (see below). This may improve performance when an NFS or other
|
| - network file-system, as the synchronous round-trips to the server be
|
| - required to establish file locks are avoided. However, if multiple
|
| - connections attempt to access the same database file when file-locking
|
| - is disabled, application crashes and database corruption is a likely
|
| - outcome.
|
| -
|
| -
|
| -2. COMPILATION AND USAGE
|
| -
|
| - The asynchronous IO extension consists of a single file of C code
|
| - (sqlite3async.c), and a header file (sqlite3async.h) that defines the
|
| - C API used by applications to activate and control the modules
|
| - functionality.
|
| -
|
| - To use the asynchronous IO extension, compile sqlite3async.c as
|
| - part of the application that uses SQLite. Then use the API defined
|
| - in sqlite3async.h to initialize and configure the module.
|
| -
|
| - The asynchronous IO VFS API is described in detail in comments in
|
| - sqlite3async.h. Using the API usually consists of the following steps:
|
| -
|
| - 1. Register the asynchronous IO VFS with SQLite by calling the
|
| - sqlite3async_initialize() function.
|
| -
|
| - 2. Create a background thread to perform write operations and call
|
| - sqlite3async_run().
|
| -
|
| - 3. Use the normal SQLite API to read and write to databases via
|
| - the asynchronous IO VFS.
|
| -
|
| - Refer to sqlite3async.h for details.
|
| -
|
| -
|
| -3. PORTING
|
| -
|
| - Currently the asynchronous IO extension is compatible with win32 systems
|
| - and systems that support the pthreads interface, including Mac OSX, Linux,
|
| - and other varieties of Unix.
|
| -
|
| - To port the asynchronous IO extension to another platform, the user must
|
| - implement mutex and condition variable primitives for the new platform.
|
| - Currently there is no externally available interface to allow this, but
|
| - modifying the code within sqlite3async.c to include the new platforms
|
| - concurrency primitives is relatively easy. Search within sqlite3async.c
|
| - for the comment string "PORTING FUNCTIONS" for details. Then implement
|
| - new versions of each of the following:
|
| -
|
| - static void async_mutex_enter(int eMutex);
|
| - static void async_mutex_leave(int eMutex);
|
| - static void async_cond_wait(int eCond, int eMutex);
|
| - static void async_cond_signal(int eCond);
|
| - static void async_sched_yield(void);
|
| -
|
| - The functionality required of each of the above functions is described
|
| - in comments in sqlite3async.c.
|
| -
|
|
|