MVCC Guide (Experimental)

Multi-Version Concurrency Control. Work in progress, not production-ready.

CRITICAL: Ignore MVCC when debugging unless the bug is MVCC-specific.

Enabling MVCC

PRAGMA journal_mode = 'experimental_mvcc';

Runtime configuration, not a compile-time feature flag. Per-database setting.

How It Works

Standard WAL: single version per page, readers see snapshot at read mark time.

MVCC: multiple row versions, snapshot isolation. Each transaction sees consistent snapshot at begin time.

Key Differences from WAL

Aspect	WAL	MVCC
Write granularity	Every commit writes full pages	Affected rows only
Readers/Writers	Don't block each other	Don't block each other
Persistence	.db-wal	.db-log (logical log)
Isolation	Snapshot (page-level)	Snapshot (row-level)

Versioning

Each row version tracks:

• begin - timestamp when visible
• end - timestamp when deleted/replaced
• btree_resident - existed before MVCC enabled

Architecture

Database
  └─ mv_store: MvStore
      ├─ rows: SkipMap<RowID, Vec<RowVersion>>
      ├─ txs: SkipMap<TxID, Transaction>
      ├─ Storage (.db-log file)
      └─ CheckpointStateMachine

Per-connection: mv_tx tracks current MVCC transaction.

Shared: MvStore with lock-free crossbeam_skiplist structures.

Key Files

• core/mvcc/mod.rs - Module overview
• core/mvcc/database/mod.rs - Main implementation (~3000 lines)
• core/mvcc/cursor.rs - Merged MVCC + B-tree cursor
• core/mvcc/persistent_storage/logical_log.rs - Disk format
• core/mvcc/database/checkpoint_state_machine.rs - Checkpoint logic

Checkpointing

Flushes row versions to B-tree periodically.

PRAGMA mvcc_checkpoint_threshold = <pages>;

Process: acquire lock → begin pager txn → write rows → commit → truncate log → fsync → release.

Current Limitations

Not implemented:

• Garbage collection (old versions accumulate)
• Recovery from logical log on restart

Known issues:

• Checkpoint blocks other transactions, even reads!
• No spilling to disk; memory use concerns

Testing

# Run MVCC-specific tests
cargo test mvcc

# TCL tests with MVCC
make test-mvcc

Use #[turso_macros::test(mvcc)] attribute for MVCC-enabled tests.

#[turso_macros::test(mvcc)]
fn test_something() {
    // runs with MVCC enabled
}

References

• core/mvcc/mod.rs documents data anomalies (dirty reads, lost updates, etc.)
• Snapshot isolation vs serializability: MVCC provides the former, not the latter