Databases are an integral part to software development and to better understand how they work, I made my own. In this project, I built a LSM-Tree Key-Value Store based on RocksDB in Rust.

While building this database, I wrote easy to understand articles explaining how each component works and fits into the larger project. Knowledge of database storage engines is very scattered online, and I spent several months reading papers, documentation, and code to get a basic understanding. I made this guide for my beginner self who was often lost trying to piece together how a database worked.

• Build a Database Pt. 1: Motivation & Design
• Build a Database Pt. 2: MemTable
• Build a Database Pt. 3: Write Ahead Log(WAL)
• Build a Database Pt. 4: SSTable
• Build a Database Pt. 5: Compaction
• Build a Database Pt. 6: Putting it Together
• Build a Database Pt. 7: Using the Database

Running tests is very simple with cargo.

cargo test