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| 1 | + |
| 2 | +Normally, when SQLite writes to a database file, it waits until the write |
| 3 | +operation is finished before returning control to the calling application. |
| 4 | +Since writing to the file-system is usually very slow compared with CPU |
| 5 | +bound operations, this can be a performance bottleneck. This directory |
| 6 | +contains an extension that causes SQLite to perform all write requests |
| 7 | +using a separate thread running in the background. Although this does not |
| 8 | +reduce the overall system resources (CPU, disk bandwidth etc.) at all, it |
| 9 | +allows SQLite to return control to the caller quickly even when writing to |
| 10 | +the database, eliminating the bottleneck. |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | + 1. Functionality |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | + 1.1 How it Works |
| 15 | + 1.2 Limitations |
| 16 | + 1.3 Locking and Concurrency |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | + 2. Compilation and Usage |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | + 3. Porting |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +1. FUNCTIONALITY |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | + With asynchronous I/O, write requests are handled by a separate thread |
| 27 | + running in the background. This means that the thread that initiates |
| 28 | + a database write does not have to wait for (sometimes slow) disk I/O |
| 29 | + to occur. The write seems to happen very quickly, though in reality |
| 30 | + it is happening at its usual slow pace in the background. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | + Asynchronous I/O appears to give better responsiveness, but at a price. |
| 33 | + You lose the Durable property. With the default I/O backend of SQLite, |
| 34 | + once a write completes, you know that the information you wrote is |
| 35 | + safely on disk. With the asynchronous I/O, this is not the case. If |
| 36 | + your program crashes or if a power loss occurs after the database |
| 37 | + write but before the asynchronous write thread has completed, then the |
| 38 | + database change might never make it to disk and the next user of the |
| 39 | + database might not see your change. |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | + You lose Durability with asynchronous I/O, but you still retain the |
| 42 | + other parts of ACID: Atomic, Consistent, and Isolated. Many |
| 43 | + appliations get along fine without the Durablity. |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | + 1.1 How it Works |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | + Asynchronous I/O works by creating a special SQLite "vfs" structure |
| 48 | + and registering it with sqlite3_vfs_register(). When files opened via |
| 49 | + this vfs are written to (using the vfs xWrite() method), the data is not |
| 50 | + written directly to disk, but is placed in the "write-queue" to be |
| 51 | + handled by the background thread. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | + When files opened with the asynchronous vfs are read from |
| 54 | + (using the vfs xRead() method), the data is read from the file on |
| 55 | + disk and the write-queue, so that from the point of view of |
| 56 | + the vfs reader the xWrite() appears to have already completed. |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | + The special vfs is registered (and unregistered) by calls to the |
| 59 | + API functions sqlite3async_initialize() and sqlite3async_shutdown(). |
| 60 | + See section "Compilation and Usage" below for details. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | + 1.2 Limitations |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | + In order to gain experience with the main ideas surrounding asynchronous |
| 65 | + IO, this implementation is deliberately kept simple. Additional |
| 66 | + capabilities may be added in the future. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | + For example, as currently implemented, if writes are happening at a |
| 69 | + steady stream that exceeds the I/O capability of the background writer |
| 70 | + thread, the queue of pending write operations will grow without bound. |
| 71 | + If this goes on for long enough, the host system could run out of memory. |
| 72 | + A more sophisticated module could to keep track of the quantity of |
| 73 | + pending writes and stop accepting new write requests when the queue of |
| 74 | + pending writes grows too large. |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | + 1.3 Locking and Concurrency |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | + Multiple connections from within a single process that use this |
| 79 | + implementation of asynchronous IO may access a single database |
| 80 | + file concurrently. From the point of view of the user, if all |
| 81 | + connections are from within a single process, there is no difference |
| 82 | + between the concurrency offered by "normal" SQLite and SQLite |
| 83 | + using the asynchronous backend. |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | + If file-locking is enabled (it is enabled by default), then connections |
| 86 | + from multiple processes may also read and write the database file. |
| 87 | + However concurrency is reduced as follows: |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | + * When a connection using asynchronous IO begins a database |
| 90 | + transaction, the database is locked immediately. However the |
| 91 | + lock is not released until after all relevant operations |
| 92 | + in the write-queue have been flushed to disk. This means |
| 93 | + (for example) that the database may remain locked for some |
| 94 | + time after a "COMMIT" or "ROLLBACK" is issued. |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | + * If an application using asynchronous IO executes transactions |
| 97 | + in quick succession, other database users may be effectively |
| 98 | + locked out of the database. This is because when a BEGIN |
| 99 | + is executed, a database lock is established immediately. But |
| 100 | + when the corresponding COMMIT or ROLLBACK occurs, the lock |
| 101 | + is not released until the relevant part of the write-queue |
| 102 | + has been flushed through. As a result, if a COMMIT is followed |
| 103 | + by a BEGIN before the write-queue is flushed through, the database |
| 104 | + is never unlocked,preventing other processes from accessing |
| 105 | + the database. |
| 106 | + |
| 107 | + File-locking may be disabled at runtime using the sqlite3async_control() |
| 108 | + API (see below). This may improve performance when an NFS or other |
| 109 | + network file-system, as the synchronous round-trips to the server be |
| 110 | + required to establish file locks are avoided. However, if multiple |
| 111 | + connections attempt to access the same database file when file-locking |
| 112 | + is disabled, application crashes and database corruption is a likely |
| 113 | + outcome. |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | + |
| 116 | +2. COMPILATION AND USAGE |
| 117 | + |
| 118 | + The asynchronous IO extension consists of a single file of C code |
| 119 | + (sqlite3async.c), and a header file (sqlite3async.h) that defines the |
| 120 | + C API used by applications to activate and control the modules |
| 121 | + functionality. |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | + To use the asynchronous IO extension, compile sqlite3async.c as |
| 124 | + part of the application that uses SQLite. Then use the API defined |
| 125 | + in sqlite3async.h to initialize and configure the module. |
| 126 | + |
| 127 | + The asynchronous IO VFS API is described in detail in comments in |
| 128 | + sqlite3async.h. Using the API usually consists of the following steps: |
| 129 | + |
| 130 | + 1. Register the asynchronous IO VFS with SQLite by calling the |
| 131 | + sqlite3async_initialize() function. |
| 132 | + |
| 133 | + 2. Create a background thread to perform write operations and call |
| 134 | + sqlite3async_run(). |
| 135 | + |
| 136 | + 3. Use the normal SQLite API to read and write to databases via |
| 137 | + the asynchronous IO VFS. |
| 138 | + |
| 139 | + Refer to sqlite3async.h for details. |
| 140 | + |
| 141 | + |
| 142 | +3. PORTING |
| 143 | + |
| 144 | + Currently the asynchronous IO extension is compatible with win32 systems |
| 145 | + and systems that support the pthreads interface, including Mac OSX, Linux, |
| 146 | + and other varieties of Unix. |
| 147 | + |
| 148 | + To port the asynchronous IO extension to another platform, the user must |
| 149 | + implement mutex and condition variable primitives for the new platform. |
| 150 | + Currently there is no externally available interface to allow this, but |
| 151 | + modifying the code within sqlite3async.c to include the new platforms |
| 152 | + concurrency primitives is relatively easy. Search within sqlite3async.c |
| 153 | + for the comment string "PORTING FUNCTIONS" for details. Then implement |
| 154 | + new versions of each of the following: |
| 155 | + |
| 156 | + static void async_mutex_enter(int eMutex); |
| 157 | + static void async_mutex_leave(int eMutex); |
| 158 | + static void async_cond_wait(int eCond, int eMutex); |
| 159 | + static void async_cond_signal(int eCond); |
| 160 | + static void async_sched_yield(void); |
| 161 | + |
| 162 | + The functionality required of each of the above functions is described |
| 163 | + in comments in sqlite3async.c. |
| 164 | + |
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