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Comment:Minor edits to the WAL document.
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SHA1: f84c08f7bfe1c2680bf98199676896e04fe2bb86
User & Date: drh 2010-06-17 15:21:47.000
Context
2010-06-19
10:39
Updates to the fileformat2 document. (check-in: 2a5bc288a1 user: drh tags: trunk)
2010-06-17
15:21
Minor edits to the WAL document. (check-in: f84c08f7bf user: drh tags: trunk)
2010-06-15
12:50
Add the new book by Kay Droessler to the "Books About SQLite" page. (check-in: 089a50e46d user: drh tags: trunk)
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Changes to pages/wal.in.
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Beginning with [version 3.7.0], a new "Write-Ahead Log" option
(hereafter referred to as "WAL") is available.</p>

<p>There are advantages and disadvantages to using WAL instead of
a rollback journal.  Advantages include:</p>

<ol>
<li>WAL is significantly faster in common usage patterns.
<li>WAL provides more concurrency as readers do not block writers and 
    a writer does not block readers.  Reading and writing can proceed 
    concurrently.
<li>Disk I/O operations tends to be more sequential using WAL.
<li>WAL uses many fewer fsync() operations and is thus less vulnerable to
    problems on systems where the fsync() system call is broken.
</ol>








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Beginning with [version 3.7.0], a new "Write-Ahead Log" option
(hereafter referred to as "WAL") is available.</p>

<p>There are advantages and disadvantages to using WAL instead of
a rollback journal.  Advantages include:</p>

<ol>
<li>WAL is significantly faster in most scenarios.
<li>WAL provides more concurrency as readers do not block writers and 
    a writer does not block readers.  Reading and writing can proceed 
    concurrently.
<li>Disk I/O operations tends to be more sequential using WAL.
<li>WAL uses many fewer fsync() operations and is thus less vulnerable to
    problems on systems where the fsync() system call is broken.
</ol>
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<li>All processes using a database must be on the same host computer;
    WAL does not work over a network filesystem.
<li>Transactions that involve changes against multiple [ATTACH | ATTACHed]
    databases are atomic for each individual database, but are not
    atomic across all databases as a set.
<li>With WAL, it is not possible to change the database page sizes 
    using [VACUUM] or when restoring from a backup using the [backup API].

<li>WAL can be slower than the traditional rollback-journal approach
    for large transactions (such as when using the [VACUUM] command).
<li>There is an additional persistent "*-wal" file associated with each
    database, which can make SQLite less appealing for use as an 
    [application file-format].
<li>There is the extra operation of [checkpointing] which, though automatic
    by default, is still something that application developers need to
    be mindful of.
</ol>








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<li>All processes using a database must be on the same host computer;
    WAL does not work over a network filesystem.
<li>Transactions that involve changes against multiple [ATTACH | ATTACHed]
    databases are atomic for each individual database, but are not
    atomic across all databases as a set.
<li>With WAL, it is not possible to change the database page sizes 
    using [VACUUM] or when restoring from a backup using the [backup API].
<li>WAL might be very slightly slower (perhaps 1% or 2% slower)
    than the traditional rollback-journal approach
    in applications that do mostly reads and seldom write.
<li>There is an additional persistent "*-wal" file associated with each
    database, which can make SQLite less appealing for use as an 
    [application file-format].
<li>There is the extra operation of [checkpointing] which, though automatic
    by default, is still something that application developers need to
    be mindful of.
</ol>
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