Book Image

MySQL 5.1 Plugin Development

Book Image

MySQL 5.1 Plugin Development

Overview of this book

MySQL has introduced a Plugin API with its latest version – a robust, powerful, and easy way of extending the server functionality with loadable modules on the fly. But until now anyone wishing to develop a plugin would almost certainly need to dig into the MySQL source code and search the Web for missing bits of the information.This is the first book on the MySQL Plugin API. Written together with one of the Plugin API primary architects, it contains all the details you need to build a plugin. It shows what a plugin should contain and how to compile, install, and package it. Every chapter illustrates the material with thoroughly explained source code examples.Starting from the basic features, common to all plugin types, and the structure of the plugin framework, this book will guide you through the different plugin types, from simple examples to advanced ones. Server monitoring, full-text search in JPEG comments, typo-tolerant searches, getting the list of all user variables, system usage statistics, or a complete storage engine with indexes – these and other plugins are developed in different chapters of this book, demonstrating the power and versatility of the MySQL Plugin API and explaining the intricate details of MySQL Plugin programming.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
MySQL 5.1 Plugin Development
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
Preface

Chapter 8. Storage Engine Plugins

One of the great strengths of MySQL and one of the main features which sets it apart from other RDBMSs is its ability to use different storage engines for different tables. These different storage engines can control where and how the data is stored and retrieved. Every storage engine has strengths and weaknesses, which means that MySQL can be tailored to the user's need through its use of storage engines.

In this chapter, we will outline everything you need to create your own storage engine. We will then finish off the chapter with an example of a simple read-only storage engine plugin.

Introducing storage engines

Earlier in this book we covered Information Schema plugins. Although very differently defined, these plugins work a little like partially implemented read-only storage engines. We just have to provide the table layout and fill the rows when queried. With a basic storage engine plugin we have to do exactly the same, but there are many other methods...