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...