Revision d3d20dcdca9dc79d893a03dfa611fb1055c28f96 authored by Sagar Vemuri on 11 April 2019, 02:24:25 UTC, committed by Facebook Github Bot on 11 April 2019, 02:31:18 UTC
Summary: Introducing Periodic Compactions. This feature allows all the files in a CF to be periodically compacted. It could help in catching any corruptions that could creep into the DB proactively as every file is constantly getting re-compacted. And also, of course, it helps to cleanup data older than certain threshold. - Introduced a new option `periodic_compaction_time` to control how long a file can live without being compacted in a CF. - This works across all levels. - The files are put in the same level after going through the compaction. (Related files in the same level are picked up as `ExpandInputstoCleanCut` is used). - Compaction filters, if any, are invoked as usual. - A new table property, `file_creation_time`, is introduced to implement this feature. This property is set to the time at which the SST file was created (and that time is given by the underlying Env/OS). This feature can be enabled on its own, or in conjunction with `ttl`. It is possible to set a different time threshold for the bottom level when used in conjunction with ttl. Since `ttl` works only on 0 to last but one levels, you could set `ttl` to, say, 1 day, and `periodic_compaction_time` to, say, 7 days. Since `ttl < periodic_compaction_time` all files in last but one levels keep getting picked up based on ttl, and almost never based on periodic_compaction_time. The files in the bottom level get picked up for compaction based on `periodic_compaction_time`. Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/5166 Differential Revision: D14884441 Pulled By: sagar0 fbshipit-source-id: 408426cbacb409c06386a98632dcf90bfa1bda47
1 parent ef0fc1b
2019-03-08-format-version-4.markdown
---
title: format_version 4
layout: post
author: maysamyabandeh
category: blog
---
The data blocks in RocksDB consist of a sequence of key/values pairs sorted by key, where the pairs are grouped into _restart intervals_ specified by `block_restart_interval`. Up to RocksDB version 5.14, where the latest and default value of `BlockBasedTableOptions::format_version` is 2, the format of index and data blocks are the same: index blocks use the same key format of <`user_key`,`seq`> and encode pointers to data blocks, <`offset`,`size`>, to a byte string and use them as values. The only difference is that the index blocks use `index_block_restart_interval` for the size of _restart intervals_. `format_version=`3,4 offer more optimized, backward-compatible, yet forward-incompatible format for index blocks.
### Pros
Using `format_version`=4 significantly reduces the index block size, in some cases around 4-5x. This frees more space in block cache, which would result in higher hit rate for data and filter blocks, or offer the same performance with a smaller block cache size.
### Cons
Being _forward-incompatible_ means that if you enable `format_version=`4 you cannot downgrade to a RocksDB version lower than 5.16.
### How to use it?
- `BlockBasedTableOptions::format_version` = 4
- `BlockBasedTableOptions::index_block_restart_interval` = 16
### What is format_version 3?
(Since RocksDB 5.15) In most cases, the sequence number `seq` is not necessary for keys in the index blocks. In such cases, `format_version`=3 skips encoding the sequence number and sets `index_key_is_user_key` in TableProperties, which is used by the reader to know how to decode the index block.
### What is format_version 4?
(Since RocksDB 5.16) Changes the format of index blocks by delta encoding the index values, which are the block handles. This saves the encoding of `BlockHandle::offset` of the non-head index entries in each restart interval. If used, `TableProperties::index_value_is_delta_encoded` is set, which is used by the reader to know how to decode the index block. The format of each key is (shared_size, non_shared_size, shared, non_shared). The format of each value, i.e., block handle, is (offset, size) whenever the shared_size is 0, which included the first entry in each restart point. Otherwise the format is delta-size = block handle size - size of last block handle.
The index format in `format_version=4` would be as follows:
restart_point 0: k, v (off, sz), k, v (delta-sz), ..., k, v (delta-sz)
restart_point 1: k, v (off, sz), k, v (delta-sz), ..., k, v (delta-sz)
...
restart_point n-1: k, v (off, sz), k, v (delta-sz), ..., k, v (delta-sz)
where, k is key, v is value, and its encoding is in parenthesis.
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