MYISAMPACK(1) MariaDB Database System MYISAMPACK(1) NAME myisampack - generate compressed, read-only MyISAM tables SYNOPSIS myisampack [options] file_name ... DESCRIPTION The myisampack utility compresses MyISAM tables. myisampack works by com- pressing each column in the table separately. Usually, myisampack packs the data file 40%-70%. When the table is used later, the server reads into memory the information needed to decompress columns. This results in much better performance when accessing individual rows, because you only have to uncompress exactly one row. MariaDB uses mmap() when possible to perform memory mapping on compressed tables. If mmap() does not work, MariaDB falls back to normal read/write file operations. Please note the following: * If the mariadbd server was invoked with external locking disabled, it is not a good idea to invoke myisampack if the table might be updated by the server during the packing process. It is safest to compress ta- bles with the server stopped. * After packing a table, it becomes read only. This is generally intended (such as when accessing packed tables on a CD). Invoke myisampack like this: shell> myisampack [options] file_name ... Each file name argument should be the name of an index (.MYI) file. If you are not in the database directory, you should specify the path name to the file. It is permissible to omit the .MYI extension. After you compress a table with myisampack, you should use myisamchk -rq to rebuild its indexes. myisamchk(1). myisampack supports the following options. It also reads option files and supports the options for processing them described at Section 4.2.3.3.1, "Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling". * --help, -? Display a help message and exit. * --backup, -b Make a backup of each table's data file using the name tbl_name.OLD. * --character-sets-dir=path The directory where character sets are installed. See Section 9.5, "Character Set Configuration". * --debug[=debug_options], -# [debug_options] Write a debugging log. A typical debug_options string is 'd:t:o,file_name'. The default is 'd:t:o'. * --force, -f Produce a packed table even if it becomes larger than the original or if the intermediate file from an earlier invocation of myisampack ex- ists. (myisampack creates an intermediate file named tbl_name.TMD in the database directory while it compresses the table. If you kill my- isampack, the .TMD file might not be deleted.) Normally, myisampack ex- its with an error if it finds that tbl_name.TMD exists. With --force, myisampack packs the table anyway. * --join=big_tbl_name, -j big_tbl_name Join all tables named on the command line into a single packed table big_tbl_name. All tables that are to be combined must have identical structure (same column names and types, same indexes, and so forth). big_tbl_name must not exist prior to the join operation. All source ta- bles named on the command line to be merged into big_tbl_name must ex- ist. The source tables are read for the join operation but not modi- fied. The join operation does not create a .frm file for big_tbl_name, so after the join operation finishes, copy the .frm file from one of the source tables and name it big_tbl_name.frm. * --silent, -s Silent mode. Write output only when errors occur. * --test, -t Do not actually pack the table, just test packing it. * --tmpdir=path, -T path Use the named directory as the location where myisampack creates tempo- rary files. * --verbose, -v Verbose mode. Write information about the progress of the packing oper- ation and its result. * --version, -V Display version information and exit. * --wait, -w Wait and retry if the table is in use. If the mariadbd server was in- voked with external locking disabled, it is not a good idea to invoke myisampack if the table might be updated by the server during the pack- ing process. The following sequence of commands illustrates a typical table compression session: shell> ls -l station.* -rw-rw-r-- 1 monty my 994128 Apr 17 19:00 station.MYD -rw-rw-r-- 1 monty my 53248 Apr 17 19:00 station.MYI -rw-rw-r-- 1 monty my 5767 Apr 17 19:00 station.frm shell> myisamchk -dvv station MyISAM file: station Isam-version: 2 Creation time: 1996-03-13 10:08:58 Recover time: 1997-02-02 3:06:43 Data records: 1192 Deleted blocks: 0 Datafile parts: 1192 Deleted data: 0 Datafile pointer (bytes): 2 Keyfile pointer (bytes): 2 Max datafile length: 54657023 Max keyfile length: 33554431 Recordlength: 834 Record format: Fixed length table description: Key Start Len Index Type Root Blocksize Rec/key 1 2 4 unique unsigned long 1024 1024 1 2 32 30 multip. text 10240 1024 1 Field Start Length Type 1 1 1 2 2 4 3 6 4 4 10 1 5 11 20 6 31 1 7 32 30 8 62 35 9 97 35 10 132 35 11 167 4 12 171 16 13 187 35 14 222 4 15 226 16 16 242 20 17 262 20 18 282 20 19 302 30 20 332 4 21 336 4 22 340 1 23 341 8 24 349 8 25 357 8 26 365 2 27 367 2 28 369 4 29 373 4 30 377 1 31 378 2 32 380 8 33 388 4 34 392 4 35 396 4 36 400 4 37 404 1 38 405 4 39 409 4 40 413 4 41 417 4 42 421 4 43 425 4 44 429 20 45 449 30 46 479 1 47 480 1 48 481 79 49 560 79 50 639 79 51 718 79 52 797 8 53 805 1 54 806 1 55 807 20 56 827 4 57 831 4 shell> myisampack station.MYI Compressing station.MYI: (1192 records) - Calculating statistics normal: 20 empty-space: 16 empty-zero: 12 empty-fill: 11 pre-space: 0 end-space: 12 table-lookups: 5 zero: 7 Original trees: 57 After join: 17 - Compressing file 87.14% Remember to run myisamchk -rq on compressed tables shell> ls -l station.* -rw-rw-r-- 1 monty my 127874 Apr 17 19:00 station.MYD -rw-rw-r-- 1 monty my 55296 Apr 17 19:04 station.MYI -rw-rw-r-- 1 monty my 5767 Apr 17 19:00 station.frm shell> myisamchk -dvv station MyISAM file: station Isam-version: 2 Creation time: 1996-03-13 10:08:58 Recover time: 1997-04-17 19:04:26 Data records: 1192 Deleted blocks: 0 Datafile parts: 1192 Deleted data: 0 Datafile pointer (bytes): 3 Keyfile pointer (bytes): 1 Max datafile length: 16777215 Max keyfile length: 131071 Recordlength: 834 Record format: Compressed table description: Key Start Len Index Type Root Blocksize Rec/key 1 2 4 unique unsigned long 10240 1024 1 2 32 30 multip. text 54272 1024 1 Field Start Length Type Huff tree Bits 1 1 1 constant 1 0 2 2 4 zerofill(1) 2 9 3 6 4 no zeros, zerofill(1) 2 9 4 10 1 3 9 5 11 20 table-lookup 4 0 6 31 1 3 9 7 32 30 no endspace, not_always 5 9 8 62 35 no endspace, not_always, no empty 6 9 9 97 35 no empty 7 9 10 132 35 no endspace, not_always, no empty 6 9 11 167 4 zerofill(1) 2 9 12 171 16 no endspace, not_always, no empty 5 9 13 187 35 no endspace, not_always, no empty 6 9 14 222 4 zerofill(1) 2 9 15 226 16 no endspace, not_always, no empty 5 9 16 242 20 no endspace, not_always 8 9 17 262 20 no endspace, no empty 8 9 18 282 20 no endspace, no empty 5 9 19 302 30 no endspace, no empty 6 9 20 332 4 always zero 2 9 21 336 4 always zero 2 9 22 340 1 3 9 23 341 8 table-lookup 9 0 24 349 8 table-lookup 10 0 25 357 8 always zero 2 9 26 365 2 2 9 27 367 2 no zeros, zerofill(1) 2 9 28 369 4 no zeros, zerofill(1) 2 9 29 373 4 table-lookup 11 0 30 377 1 3 9 31 378 2 no zeros, zerofill(1) 2 9 32 380 8 no zeros 2 9 33 388 4 always zero 2 9 34 392 4 table-lookup 12 0 35 396 4 no zeros, zerofill(1) 13 9 36 400 4 no zeros, zerofill(1) 2 9 37 404 1 2 9 38 405 4 no zeros 2 9 39 409 4 always zero 2 9 40 413 4 no zeros 2 9 41 417 4 always zero 2 9 42 421 4 no zeros 2 9 43 425 4 always zero 2 9 44 429 20 no empty 3 9 45 449 30 no empty 3 9 46 479 1 14 4 47 480 1 14 4 48 481 79 no endspace, no empty 15 9 49 560 79 no empty 2 9 50 639 79 no empty 2 9 51 718 79 no endspace 16 9 52 797 8 no empty 2 9 53 805 1 17 1 54 806 1 3 9 55 807 20 no empty 3 9 56 827 4 no zeros, zerofill(2) 2 9 57 831 4 no zeros, zerofill(1) 2 9 myisampack displays the following kinds of information: * normal The number of columns for which no extra packing is used. * empty-space The number of columns containing values that are only spaces. These oc- cupy one bit. * empty-zero The number of columns containing values that are only binary zeros. These occupy one bit. * empty-fill The number of integer columns that do not occupy the full byte range of their type. These are changed to a smaller type. For example, a BIGINT column (eight bytes) can be stored as a TINYINT column (one byte) if all its values are in the range from -128 to 127. * pre-space The number of decimal columns that are stored with leading spaces. In this case, each value contains a count for the number of leading spaces. * end-space The number of columns that have a lot of trailing spaces. In this case, each value contains a count for the number of trailing spaces. * table-lookup The column had only a small number of different values, which were con- verted to an ENUM before Huffman compression. * zero The number of columns for which all values are zero. * Original trees The initial number of Huffman trees. * After join The number of distinct Huffman trees left after joining trees to save some header space. After a table has been compressed, the Field lines displayed by myisamchk -dvv include additional information about each column: * Type The data type. The value may contain any of the following descriptors: * constant All rows have the same value. * no endspace Do not store endspace. * no endspace, not_always Do not store endspace and do not do endspace compression for all values. * no endspace, no empty Do not store endspace. Do not store empty values. * table-lookup The column was converted to an ENUM. * zerofill(N) The most significant N bytes in the value are always 0 and are not stored. * no zeros Do not store zeros. * always zero Zero values are stored using one bit. * Huff tree The number of the Huffman tree associated with the column. * Bits The number of bits used in the Huffman tree. After you run myisampack, you must run myisamchk to re-create any indexes. At this time, you can also sort the index blocks and create statistics needed for the MariaDB optimizer to work more efficiently: shell> myisamchk -rq --sort-index --analyze tbl_name.MYI After you have installed the packed table into the MariaDB database direc- tory, you should execute mariadb-admin flush-tables to force mariadbd to start using the new table. To unpack a packed table, use the --unpack option to myisamchk. COPYRIGHT Copyright 2007-2008 MySQL AB, 2008-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2010-2025 MariaDB Foundation This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License. This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1335 USA or see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. SEE ALSO For more information, please refer to the MariaDB Documentation, available online at https://mariadb.com/docs/ AUTHOR MariaDB Foundation (http://www.mariadb.org/). MariaDB 11.8 5 March 2025 MYISAMPACK(1)
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