Allen wrote:
Can anyone please tell me when the firebird will keep the record version?
Answer from Ann Harrison:
Firebird uses record versions in three ways:
- to provide a stable snapshot of data.
- to identify update conflicts between concurrent transactions
- to replace the undo log for recovery after transaction failure.
Although 1 and 2 are not of interest in a single user application, 3 is always required in a transaction-based system. So, the quick answer, is that any modification or deletion creates a record version, regardless of transaction modes or number of concurrent users.
Record versions are removed after the end of the last transaction that can read them. The actual mechanism depends on the architecture and version of Firebird. In V1.x, classic uses cooperative garbage collection and superserver uses a garbage collect thread. In Firebird2, classic is still cooperative and superserver uses a combination of cooperative and a garbage collect thread. In Vulcan, all modes use cooperative garbage collection.
Cooperative garbage collection means that when a transaction encounters a record with unneeded old versions, it immediately removes them. That is "unfair" in that a transaction that does a massive delete does the delete and moves on, leaving at least two record versions - the last data and a stub record to say it was deleted - and all index entries. When the delete is "mature", meaning that no running transaction can see the old record, the next transaction to stumble over the record must remove the record versions and index entries. That can be quite expensive.
When the garbage collect thread is running, the transaction that stumbles over a record version that can be removed just puts it on a list. When the garbage collect thread starts, it reads its list and removes all the unneeded record versions from all records on the page. A problem occurs when the garbage collect thread doesn't get enough cycles and garbage starts building up. Then the system gets very slow.
The garbage collection in V2 mixes cooperative and thread-based garbage collection. If the record version can be removed conveniently - without reading any new pages, then the transaction that finds it removes it. Otherwise, it goes on a list for the garbage collect thread.