18.2.1 MyISAM Startup Options

The following options to mysqld can be used to change the behavior of MyISAM tables. For additional information, see Section 7.1.7, “Server Command Options”.

Table 18.3 MyISAM Option and Variable Reference

Name	Cmd-Line	Option File	System Var	Status Var	Var Scope	Dynamic
bulk_insert_buffer_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes
concurrent_insert	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	Yes
delay_key_write	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	Yes
have_rtree_keys			Yes		Global	No
key_buffer_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	Yes
log-isam	Yes	Yes
myisam-block-size	Yes	Yes
myisam_data_pointer_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	Yes
myisam_max_sort_file_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	Yes
myisam_mmap_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	No
myisam_recover_options	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	No
myisam_repair_threads	Yes	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes
myisam_sort_buffer_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes
myisam_stats_method	Yes	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes
myisam_use_mmap	Yes	Yes	Yes		Global	Yes
tmp_table_size	Yes	Yes	Yes		Both	Yes

The following system variables affect the behavior of MyISAM tables. For additional information, see Section 7.1.8, “Server System Variables”.

• bulk_insert_buffer_size

  The size of the tree cache used in bulk insert optimization.

  Note

  This is a limit per thread!

• delay_key_write=ALL

  Don't flush key buffers between writes for any MyISAM table.

  Note

  If you do this, you should not access MyISAM tables from another program (such as from another MySQL server or with myisamchk) when the tables are in use. Doing so risks index corruption. Using --external-locking does not eliminate this risk.

• myisam_max_sort_file_size

  The maximum size of the temporary file that MySQL is permitted to use while re-creating a MyISAM index (during REPAIR TABLE, ALTER TABLE, or LOAD DATA). If the file size would be larger than this value, the index is created using the key cache instead, which is slower. The value is given in bytes.

• myisam_recover_options=mode

  Set the mode for automatic recovery of crashed MyISAM tables.

• myisam_sort_buffer_size

  Set the size of the buffer used when recovering tables.

Automatic recovery is activated if you start mysqld with the myisam_recover_options system variable set. In this case, when the server opens a MyISAM table, it checks whether the table is marked as crashed or whether the open count variable for the table is not 0 and you are running the server with external locking disabled. If either of these conditions is true, the following happens:

• The server checks the table for errors.

• If the server finds an error, it tries to do a fast table repair (with sorting and without re-creating the data file).

• If the repair fails because of an error in the data file (for example, a duplicate-key error), the server tries again, this time re-creating the data file.

• If the repair still fails, the server tries once more with the old repair option method (write row by row without sorting). This method should be able to repair any type of error and has low disk space requirements.

If the recovery wouldn't be able to recover all rows from previously completed statements and you didn't specify FORCE in the value of the myisam_recover_options system variable, automatic repair aborts with an error message in the error log:

Error: Couldn't repair table: test.g00pages

If you specify FORCE, a warning like this is written instead:

Warning: Found 344 of 354 rows when repairing ./test/g00pages

If the automatic recovery value includes BACKUP, the recovery process creates files with names of the form tbl_name-datetime.BAK. You should have a cron script that automatically moves these files from the database directories to backup media.