My initial plans got waylaid! I didn't pull out the checksumming code first, because the code wasn't at all as I remembered it. Instead, I began writing code to handle the more abstract problem of accepting two sets of rows, finding the differences, and doing something with them. I'm ending up with a little more complicated system than I thought I would. However, it's also significantly simpler in some ways. Instead of just passing references to subroutines to use as callbacks, I'm object-ifying the entire synchronization concept...

Tomorrow is the first of five days I will spend working on mk-table-sync, the data synchronization tool I developed as part of Maatkit. The first thing I’ll do is pull the row-checksumming code out into a module and write a unit test suite for it. I’ll probably add the code to the module [...]

It's been a while since I said anything about the progress on the book. That doesn't mean we are not still working on it, though.

As Peter wrote a while ago, he is basically wearing the hat of a very advanced technical reviewer at this point. We've finished writing all the chapters from his detailed outlines. He has worked through about half the chapters, and I'm continuing to spend my evenings and weekends and holidays (yes, nearly all my free time -- just ask my wife!) writing some new material (an appendix on EXPLAIN, for example), finishing unfinished things marked with TODO in the text, and revising chapters after Peter reviews them. Vadim is working on benchmarks. For example, he just finished some benchmarks for something I profiled with SHOW STATUS. I thought that would be good …

Maatkit (formerly MySQL Toolkit) contains essential command-line utilities for MySQL, such as a table checksum tool and query profiler. It provides missing features such as checking slaves for data consistency, with emphasis on quality and scriptability.

This release fixes several minor bugs. It also renames all the tools to avoid trademark violation.

A while ago I asked for people and/or organizations to sponsor development on Maatkit (formerly MySQL Toolkit) so I could take a week off work and improve the Table Sync tool. I asked for $2500 USD, but several companies have graciously offered to cover that and then some.

I'm very happy about this, as it will allow me to dedicate a solid week to fixing bugs and adding features. There's a lot of demand for the tools, and there are a dozen or so bug reports unresolved for the table-sync tool, which I personally want to fix as much as anyone. So I'm very grateful for the support.

Here are the companies who have promised their financial support:

MySQL AB

…

Maatkit (formerly MySQL Toolkit) version 1297 contains a significant update to MySQL Table Checksum (which will be renamed soon to avoid trademark violations). The changelog follows. What you don't see in the changelog is the unit test suite! I got a lot more of the code into modules that are tested and re-usable.

2007-11-18: version 1.1.19 

* Check for needed privileges on --replicate table before beginning. 
* Made some error messages more informative. 
* Fixed child process exit status with 8-bit right-shift. 
* Improved checksumming code auto-detects best algorithm and function. 
* Added --ignoreengine option; ignores federated and merge by default. 
* Added --columns and --checksum options. 
* Removed --chunkcol, --chunksize-exact, --index options. 
* --chunksize can be specified as a data size now. 
* Improved chunking algorithm handles more cases and uses fewer chunks. 
* Do not print --replcheck results for servers that are not …

Download Maatkit

Maatkit (formerly MySQL Toolkit) has for some time been released both as a bundle, and as individual tools. It's too much work to maintain the individual packages, and I don't think it really benefits anyone much, if at all. While the tools will still be versioned separately, I'm going to discontinue releases of the individual packages, and just release the one uber-package from now on.

This will also make it easier for me to manage the name change, but that's just an extra incentive; I've been considering this for a while.

By the way, Sourceforge indicated it would take up to a couple of days to finish the project's rename, but it took only a few minutes. Lots of broken links; I've asked for a permanent redirect from the old URLs to the new.

I am so lucky I married an archaeologist.

Choosing a new name for MySQL Toolkit has been a hassle. I wanted to avoid a literal name, such as, um, MySQL Toolkit. Short is good. And so on, and so on. All the while, the Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox naming debacle was in my thoughts. I only want to do this once.

Read on for a fun lesson in Egyptian mythology, courtesy of my wife!

This release fixes several bugs introduced in the last release as I replaced untested code with tested code -- how ironic! Actually, I knew that was virtually guaranteed to happen. Anyway, all the bugs you've helped me find are now fixed. I also fixed a long-standing bug in MySQL Table Sync, which I am otherwise trying to touch as little as possible for the time being. (Remember to contribute to the bounty, and get your employer to contribute as well, so I can do some real work on it in the next month or so!)

The other big news is that the parallel dump and restore tools are now 1.0.0 because I consider them feature-complete. I have put the most work into tab-separated dumps. These two tools can do something MySQL AB's tools can't currently do: restore data before creating triggers (when doing tab-delimited dumps). That's an obvious …

It's been a while since I've written about progress on the book. I actually stopped working on it as much at the beginning of the month, because on October 31(st) I managed to finish a first draft of the last big chapter! Now I'm back to full-time work at my employer, and I'm working on the book in the evenings and weekends only. Read on for details of what I've been working on and what's next in the pipeline.