Question: Hint file usage about rosedb HOT 3 CLOSED

Thanks for your attention.

The difference between the hint file and the WAL file(after merge) is that the hint file only contains the key and position info, not the value.

So when we restart the db, we can load the hint file directly to rebuild the index, not to iterate all data in wal, if the value is large, it may need a long time to build.

from rosedb.

got it, so basically both WAL and Hint file will contain only valid data, but when iterating WAL instead values would needed to be loaded into RAM so this can slow down the whole build process right?

from rosedb.

got it, so basically both WAL and Hint file will contain only valid data, but when iterating WAL instead values would needed to be loaded into RAM so this can slow down the whole build process right?

Yes, the meaning of hint file`s existence is that it does not contain value, so its size will be smaller than WAL file(especially if the value is large).

from rosedb.