Index Compression Part VI: 12c Index Advanced Compression Block Dumps (Tumble and Twirl)

Sometimes, a few pictures (or in this case index block dumps) is better than a whole bunch of words 🙂

In my previous post, I introduced the new Advanced Index Compression feature, whereby Oracle automatically determines how to best compress an index. I showed a simple example of an indexed column that had sections of index entries that were basically unique (and so don’t benefit from compression) and other sections with index entries that had many duplicates (that do compress well). Advanced Index Compression enables Oracle to automatically just compress those index leaf blocks where compression is beneficial.

If we look at a couple of partial block dumps from this index, first a dump from a leaf block that did have duplicate index entries:

Leaf block dump
===============
header address 216542820=0xce82e64
kdxcolev 0
KDXCOLEV Flags = – – –
kdxcolok 0
kdxcoopc 0xa0: opcode=0: iot flags=-C- is converted=Y
kdxconco 2
kdxcosdc 0
kdxconro 651
kdxcofbo 1346=0x542
kdxcofeo 2172=0x87c
kdxcoavs 826
kdxlespl 0
kdxlende 0
kdxlenxt 25166046=0x18000de
kdxleprv 25166044=0x18000dc
kdxledsz 0
kdxlebksz 8036
kdxlepnro 1
kdxlepnco 1 (Adaptive)
prefix row#0[8031] flag: -P—–, lock: 0, len=5
col 0; len 2; (2):  c1 2b
prc 651
row#0[8022] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=9
col 0; len 6; (6):  01 80 1e 86 00 5c
psno 0
row#1[8013] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=9
col 0; len 6; (6):  01 80 1e 86 00 5d
psno 0
row#2[8004] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=9
col 0; len 6; (6):  01 80 1e 86 00 5e
psno 0
row#3[7995] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=9
col 0; len 6; (6):  01 80 1e 86 00 5f
psno 0
row#4[7986] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=9
col 0; len 6; (6):  01 80 1e 86 00 60
psno 0

…

row#650[2172] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=9
col 0; len 6; (6):  01 80 1e 8d 00 10
psno 0
—– end of leaf block Logical dump —–

The red section is a portion of the index header that determines the number of rows in the prefix table of the index (kdxlepnro 1). The prefix table basically lists all the distinct column values in the leaf blocks that are to be compressed. The value 1 denotes there is actually only just the 1 distinct column value in this specific leaf block (i.e. all index entries have the same indexed value). This section also denotes how many of the indexed columns are to be compressed (kdxlepnco 1). As this index only has the one column, it also has a value of 1. Note this value can potentially be anything between 0 (no columns compressed) up to the number of columns in the index.  The (Adaptive) reference tells us that Index Advanced Compression has been used and that the values here can change from leaf block to leaf block depending on the data characteristics of the index entries within each leaf block (a dump of a basic compressed index will not have the “Adaptive” reference).

The green section is the compression prefix table and details all the unique combinations of index entries to be compressed within the leaf block. As all indexed values are the same in this index (value 42, internally represented as c1 2b hex), the prefix table only has the one row. prc 651 denotes that all 651 index entries in this leaf block have this specific indexed value.

Next follows all the actual index entries, which now only consist of the rowid (the 6 byte col 0 column) as they all reference psno 0, which is the unique row id of the only row within the prefix table (row#0).

So rather than storing the indexed value 651 times, we can just store the index value (42) just the once within the prefix table and simply reference it from within the actual index entries. This is why index compression can save us storage, storing something once within a leaf block rather than multiple times.

If we now look at a partial block dump of another index leaf block within the index, that consists of many differing (basically unique) index entries:

Leaf block dump
===============
header address 216542820=0xce82e64
kdxcolev 0
KDXCOLEV Flags = – – –
kdxcolok 0
kdxcoopc 0xa0: opcode=0: iot flags=-C- is converted=Y
kdxconco 2
kdxcosdc 0
kdxconro 449
kdxcofbo 938=0x3aa
kdxcofeo 1754=0x6da
kdxcoavs 816
kdxlespl 0
kdxlende 0
kdxlenxt 25168667=0x1800b1b
kdxleprv 25168665=0x1800b19
kdxledsz 0
kdxlebksz 8036
kdxlepnro 0
kdxlepnco 0 (Adaptive)
row#0[8022] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=14
col 0; len 4; (4):  c3 58 3d 2c
col 1; len 6; (6):  01 80 12 e6 00 41
row#1[8008] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=14
col 0; len 4; (4):  c3 58 3d 2d
col 1; len 6; (6):  01 80 12 e6 00 42
row#2[7994] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=14
col 0; len 4; (4):  c3 58 3d 2e
col 1; len 6; (6):  01 80 12 e6 00 43

…
row#448[1754] flag: ——-, lock: 0, len=14
col 0; len 4; (4):  c3 58 41 5c
col 1; len 6; (6):  01 80 12 ee 00 1d
—– end of leaf block Logical dump —–

We notice that in the red section, both kdxlepnro 0 and kdxlepnco 0 (Adaptive) have a value of 0, meaning we have no rows and no columns within the prefix table. As such, we have no prefix table at all here and that this leaf block has simply not been compressed.

If we look at the actual index entries, they all have an additional column now in blue, that being the actual indexed value as all the index values in this leaf block are different from each other. Without some form of index entry duplication, there would be no benefit from compression and Index Advanced Compression has automatically determined this and not bothered to compress this leaf block. An attempt to compress this block would have actually increased the necessary overall storage for these index entries, due to the additional overheads associated with the prefix table (note it has an additional 2 byes of overhead per row within the prefix table).

I’ll next look at an example of a multi-column index and how Index Advanced Compression handles which columns in the index to compress.