Hello all,
I was looking at alter table flags, and was wondering what the
difference between these two flags are. Their name seems to imply that
declaring HA_ONLINE_ADD_INDEX means the storage engine can accomodate
writes while an index is being added, whereas
HA_ONLINE_ADD_INDEX_NO_WRITES cannot.
Looking at the code in 5.1.46, I cannot find a difference. The only
change I see is in the function mysql_alter_table, the value of
need_lock_for_indexes is false if the engine exposes
HA_ONLINE_ADD_INDEX, and true if the engine exposes
HA_ONLINE_ADD_INDEX_NO_WRITES. This variable, need_lock_for_indexes,
does not seem to actually be used anywhere.
So, my question is, despite what their names imply (stating if a table
lock is necessary for add index), is there any functional difference
for storage engines that set one of these flags and not the other?
Thanks
-Zardosht
