For me, GSOC was a learning experience. I feel that I’ve learned more

from doing this than I have over the course of all my university

classes. So for me, the things that I’ve learned break down as

follows:

Technical things:

1. Installed cygwin and learnt some basic stuff regarding cygwin. Have never really used cygwin before.

2. Learnt how to use bkclient for downloading mysql source code which was replaced by bazaar in the middle of GSOC. Again I have never realy used a distributed version control system.

3. Learnt how to use bazaar which has more functionality than bkclient

4. Downloaded the mysql source code and built it on Windows as well as Linux.

5. Learnt how to debug the mysql source on Windows using Visual Studio

6. Learnt how to debug the mysql source on Linux using gdb and ddd with gdb

7. Installed mysql on ubuntu as well as Fedora Operating Systems.

8. Learnt more about the Linux kernel, threads as used by mysql and other general stuff related with mysql.

Non-technical things:

1. Not all geeky people are boring to interact with. In fact I had the chance to interact and got to know some of the most interesting people at mysql, Google as well as all other GSoC 2008 students from all ovcr the world.

2. Internet Relay Chat . I am new to IRC too.

3. Blogging.

Week 9 (21^st – 28^th July)

Key Accomplishments Last Week

1. Read about the mysql Benchmarking suite and the importance of this suite for mysql.
2. Covered the chapter on Debugging in “Expert Mysql” by Charles A.Bell.
3. The chapter on debugging helped me to get to speed to debug mysql source code on Windows using Visual Studio
4. I also practiced debugging mysql on Linux using ddd and gdb.
5. P.S. I would like to thank Brian, Collin and Leslie for their patience and support. If God wills, I should start some serious hacking very soon.

Key Tasks that stalled last Week

• 1. Installation of perl interface for executing the Benchmarking suite
     1. Have some issues with the DBD::mysql module on cygwin as well as on Linux.

Key Concerns

1. No time to look at supersmack, mybench as I will have to learn how to execute these tools.

Tasks for the Coming Week

1. Open up mysqlslap again and learn it comprehensively by running as many features as possible using a debugger on Windows or Linux or both.

Week 7+8 (7^th – 21^st July)

Key Accomplishments Last Week

1. Went through the Internals Guided Tour at http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQL_Internals_Guided_Tour completely

2. Covered the first two chapters of “Expert Mysql” by Charles A.Bell which took me into the internals of mysql source code, mysql testing and benchmarking.

3. Created a page dedicated to mysql internals at http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/mysql-internals/

4. Gained a more detailed view of the benchmarking and mysql test suites thanks to the “expert Mysql” book by Aprèss.

5. Learnt how to created a sample test file and how to execute the test case.

Key Tasks that stalled last Week

None

Key Concerns

1. Time – “Ars longa vita brevis”

Tasks for the Coming Week

1. Have a look at supersmack and mybench, two other benchmarking and load generation tools similar to mysqlslap. This will give me some more insight into benchmarking tools

2. Open up mysqlslap again and learn it comprehensively by running as many features as possible.

Week 6 (30^th June – 7^th July 2008 )

Key Accomplishments Last Week

1. Implemented a feature to rearranger.c to allow it to accept multiple input files (as requested by Brian). There are a few problems with this feature, however, and I plan on rectifying them soon.

2. Learnt some basics of Lua.

3. Learnt a bit about the ddd.

4. Started learning about the internals of mysql and bought a book, “Expert MySQL” by Charles A. Bell. I already have a fair idea about the working of mysqlslap. Once I get a good grasp of the ddd debugger I should be able to understand mysqlslap more thoroughly.

Key Tasks that stalled last Week

None

Key Concerns

The upcoming midterm evaluation gives me a sense of urgency in my work. On looking back, I feel I have given my best but it could definitely have been better. Hope that the best things that I had planned for is yet to come. I will need another week to get really comfortable with the internals of mysql and implement my plans.

Tasks for the Coming Week

1. Learn the ddd debugger to successfully trace the mysql code.

2. Learn more about the internals of mysql.

3. Run mysqlslap 6.0 as much as possible with as many features as are available and record the output.

Week 5 (23^rd – 30^th June)

Key Accomplishments Last Week

1. Got Brian’s feedback regarding rearranger.c and discussed how to proceed further.

2. Successfully overcame all errors one by one, obtained while building mysql from source on Ubuntu and understood the process more clearly. I had done this a few weeks back but since I have not done any hard-core stuff on Linux before, it took some time again.

3. Understood clearly the steps involved in installing mysql and created a help page at http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/47/ for the common errors found while installing.

Key Tasks that stalled last Week

1. Crash!!! My system had crashed while trying to install mysql and was refusing to log-in using my user name and password. It is not a bug in mysql or anything of the sort, rather it is in the modified commands that i entered to install Linux on my system. However i discovered the errors on my own and recovered successfully. For more details have a look at http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/47/.

Tasks for the Coming Week

1. Learn the ddd debugger to successfully trace the mysql code.

2. Learn completely basic Lua from http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Basic_LUA_Scripting and attend the Lua session at MysqlUniversity on thursday. Learning Lua will help me in designing something similar for mysqlslap.

3. Decide on a function that gives most ‘bang for my buck’ and start implementing it.

]]> http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/gsoc-week-5-mysqlslap/feed/ 0 taufiqmysql http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/coding-phase-1-week-4/ http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/coding-phase-1-week-4/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:32:29 +0000 taufiqmysql http://taufiqmysql.wordpress.com/?p=49 ]]>

Week 4(16th June – 23rd June)

Key Accomplishments Last Week

1) With reference to the article on http://krow.livejournal.com/483041.html I created a program that rearranges the output of mysqlslap and named it ‘rearranger.c’.

2) Also added some interesting options to ‘rearranger’ to accept command line input and to rearrange virtually any row or column on any type of csv file.

3) Registered myself for MysqlUniversity.

Key Tasks that stalled Last Week

1) Tried to register for the session on Advanced Lua scripting on 3rdJuly but was unable to as I kept getting a “Database error (SQL query hidden) “. Unable to figure out what that was.

Key Concerns

None

Tasks in the Upcoming Week

1) Will start working on writing a function to insert lot of rows using mysqlslap.

2) Must learn the C API for mysql and then go through the mysqlslap source again

3) Go through the basic Lua session from http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Writing_LUA_Scripts_for_MySQL_Proxy.

Week 3(9th June – 16th June)

Key Accomplishments Last Week

1) Successfully went through the complete presentation on http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/How_to_Build_MySQL_on_Windows/Presentation

2) Successfully built mysql from source by following the instructions http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQL_Internals_Guided_Tour.

3) Resolved all errors that arose from steps 1) and 2) on my system.In the process I gained plenty of insight into the internal working of mysql and ubuntu.

4) Mysqlslap is written in the C API. Hence I began to read about the C API for writing client programs to access the mysql database.

Key Tasks that stalled Last Week

None

Key Concerns

None

Tasks in the Upcoming Week

1) I will be working on getting mysqlslap to generate outputs in a graphical format with reference to http://krow.livejournal.com/483041.html

2) Will be working more extensively with Lua scripting.I have just installed Lua in Windows.

3) Will also be creating a web page to address many installation issues on Windows with Visual Studio 2005 as well as Linux (Ubuntu 6.06).

Week 2(2nd June – 9th June)

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS LAST WEEK

1. Switched from Windows to Ubuntu and learnt a few linux commands that will help me while coding for mysql in the long run.
2. Installed VS2005 Express and created the mysql.sln project file to view the complete mysql coding. However the build failed … The cl compiler was not available.

KEY TASKS THAT STALLED LAST WEEK

1 Building mysql from source.

a. On cygwin

b. On VS 2005 Express

c. On Ubuntu 6.06

All of the above installations had some setup issues, and debugging them was time consuming and a nightmare but things are getting sorted now.

KEY CONCERNS

Building mysql from source is problematic and time-consuming due to it’s dependencies on various tools. This fact has been stated in http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQL_Internals_Guided_Tour as well as by many others on IRC as well as in other blogs. Thus enormous amount of time is spent on checking which tools are available and which are not and installing the same.

TASKS IN THE UPCOMING WEEK

1. Installation on Cygwin, Visual Studio 2005 and Ubuntu – provide a web page on the blog for debugging major errors encountered while installing mysql from source.

2. Will start adding some basic functionality such as generating graphs in xls format, or writing functions for updating many rows, depending on which is easier.

3. Start writing various ideas for extending mysqlslap on blog as well as on lists.mysql.com,irc and obtain inputs from the community

Week 1 (26^th May – 2^nd June)

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS LAST WEEK

• My friend Abdullah (mail id: abdullah.ak2002@gmail.com), who is collaborating with me and giving me a helping hand for my GSoc project met my mentor Brian Aker in the India Shock Tour 2008. link : http://in.sun.com/sunnews/events/2008/mysql/
• Ran through the mysql slap code with Brian Aker and obtained tips from him as well as learnt some more about the “Exciting Requirements” for mysqlslap.
• We are currently reviewing various options for extending mysqlslap
  • Initially we had thought of adding some functions to mysqlslap
  • Brian Aker gave us a few suggestions with respect to developing an interpreter for mysqlslap. (Thank you Brian J).
  • Working on feasibility and time needed for the various ideas thought up so far.
• Browsed through the blog archives of Brian Aker for articles on mysqlslap and found the following useful articles (since December 28^th 2005)
  • http://krow.livejournal.com/385573.html
  • http://krow.livejournal.com/483041.html
  • http://krow.livejournal.com/547079.html
  • http://krow.livejournal.com/552724.html

KEY TASKS THAT STALLED LAST WEEK

· Planned to install mysql on cygwin

o Obtained a copy from the server using bk but getting an error while installing in the final stage during “make install” on cygwin

KEY CONCERNS

· None

TASKS IN THE UPCOMING WEEK

• Plan thus far
  • Timings :
    • 9:00 to 12:00 a.m. (Monday to Saturday) (minimum)
    • +5 hours on Sundays
  • To go through the mysqlslap code and supporting documents thoroughly.
  • Start implementing the ability to Update many rows.
• Besides the above :
• Will be learning more about scripting languages such as Lua so that we can embed some of the principles of Lua into mysqlslap

Key Accomplishments

1. Opened mysql slap and went through the code
2. Read through and attempted a few tutorials http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/howdoi/?p=133
3. Ran through a few basic tutorials regarding mysql development
4. Learnt about bitclient and the method of committing the patches into the main release.
5. Installed cygwin and obtained the latest 5.1 source distribution.

Key Tasks That stalled last week

• None So far.

Key Concerns

1. Some more documentation or a few tips would definitely help.
2. Also if you are good at database benchmarking , then please do to contact me at taufiqaalam@gmail.com

Tasks in the Upcoming Week

1. Understand the mysql code completely
2. Also would be starting to write the code that will help in testing pre- existing table