/jumpDB

A simple, embedded key-value store written in Python

Primary LanguagePythonBSD 2-Clause "Simplified" LicenseBSD-2-Clause

JumpDB

JumpDB is a simple, embedded key-value store that exploits Sorted String Tables.

Here's a tutorial which goes a little more in-depth into how it works.

Install

pip3 install jumpDB

Usage

from jumpDB import DB

db = DB()
db["k1"] = "v1"
db["k2"] = "v2"
del db["k2"]
assert db["k1"] == "v1"
assert "k2" not in db

API

  • get(key) => Finds the corresponding value to the given key

  • set(key, value) => Insert the entry into the db

  • delete(key) => Deletes the key from the db

  • contains(key) => Checks if the given key is present in the db

Design & Implementation

The design is essentially a simplified version of levelDB.

Insert

Every write is initially inserted into an in-memory data structure (typically called "memtable") -- in this case, a red-black tree.

When the memtable's size exceeds a certain threshold, all entries are written out into a segment file. Exploiting the properties of a red-black BST, we can ensure all entries will be efficiently written in sorted order. The resulting file is immutable and called a sorted-string table (SST).

Whilst performing the above write, we also maintain a sparse index table, keeping track of the file offset of every in 1 in x entries.

Read

When a read comes in, we first look into the memtable for the corresponding k-v pair; if it doesn't exist, we look at the closest entry (by key) in the sparse table. We jump to the file offset of that entry and then linearly scan forwards until we find the desired key-value pair. This works only because the SST is sorted by key.

Periodically, the SST segments are merged (also called "compaction"). This ensures a reduction in memory footprint as the resulting merged segments(s) would only hold the most recent entries.

An addition optimisation includes the use of bloom-filters to check if a key is not present in the DB. This saves us from performing heavy disk reads for keys that haven't been inserted into the db.

Tests

Run pytest -v

License

BSD 2-Clause License