I am using MySQL database via python for storing logs. I was wondering if there is any efficient way to remove the oldest row if the num of rows exceeds the limit.
I was able to do this by executing a query to find total rows and then delete the older ones by arranging them in ascending and deleting. But this method is taking too much time. Is there a way to make this efficient by making a rule while creating a table, so that MySQL itself takes care if the limit exceeds?
Thanks in advance.

CodePudding user response：

Well, there's no simple and built-in way to do this in MySQL.

Solutions that use triggers to delete old rows when you insert a new row are risky, because the trigger might fail. Or the transaction that spawned the trigger might be rolled back. In either of these cases, your intended deletion will not happen.

Also putting the burden of deleting on the thread that inserts new data causes extra work for the insert request, and usually we'd prefer not to make things slower for our current users.

It's more common to run an asynchronous job periodically to delete older data. This can be scheduled to run at off-hours, and run in batches. It also gives more flexibility to archive old data, or execute retries if the deletion or archiving fails or is interrupted.

MySQL does support an EVENT system, so you can run a stored routine based on a schedule. But you can only do tasks you can do in a stored routine, and it's not easy to make it do retries, or archive to any external system (e.g. cloud archive), or notify you when it's done.

Sorry there is no simple solution. There are just too many variations on how people would like it to work, and too many edge cases of potential failure.

The way I'd implement this is to use cron or else a timer thread in my web service to check the database, say once per hour. If it finds the number of rows is greater than the limit, it deletes the oldest rows in modestly sized batches (e.g. 1000 rows at a time) until the count is under the threshold.

I like to write scheduled jobs in a way that can be easily controlled and monitored. So I can make it run immediately if I want, and I can disable or resume the schedule if I want, and I can view a progress report about how much it deleted the last time it ran, and how long until the next time it runs, etc.