leveldb_base/doc/table_format.txt

File format
===========

  <beginning_of_file>
  [data block 1]
  [data block 2]
  ...
  [data block N]
  [meta block 1]
  ...
  [meta block K]
  [metaindex block]
  [index block]
  [Footer]        (fixed size; starts at file_size - sizeof(Footer))
  <end_of_file>

The file contains internal pointers.  Each such pointer is called
a BlockHandle and contains the following information:
  offset:	    varint64
  size:		    varint64

(1) The sequence of key/value pairs in the file are stored in sorted
order and partitioned into a sequence of data blocks.  These blocks
come one after another at the beginning of the file.  Each data block
is formatted according to the code in block_builder.cc, and then
optionally compressed.

(2) After the data blocks we store a bunch of meta blocks.  The
supported meta block types are described below.  More meta block types
may be added in the future.  Each meta block is again formatted using
block_builder.cc and then optionally compressed.

(3) A "metaindex" block.  It contains one entry for every other meta
block where the key is the name of the meta block and the value is a
BlockHandle pointing to that meta block.

(4) An "index" block.  This block contains one entry per data block,
where the key is a string >= last key in that data block and before
the first key in the successive data block.  The value is the
BlockHandle for the data block.

(6) At the very end of the file is a fixed length footer that contains
the BlockHandle of the metaindex and index blocks as well as a magic number.
       metaindex_handle:       char[p];    // Block handle for metaindex
       index_handle:	       char[q];    // Block handle for index
       padding:		       char[40-p-q]; // 0 bytes to make fixed length
       			 	       // (40==2*BlockHandle::kMaxEncodedLength)
       magic:		       fixed64;    // == 0xdb4775248b80fb57

"filter" Meta Block
-------------------

If a "FilterPolicy" was specified when the database was opened, a
filter block is stored in each table.  The "metaindex" block contains
an entry that maps from "filter.<N>" to the BlockHandle for the filter
block where "<N>" is the string returned by the filter policy's
"Name()" method.

The filter block stores a sequence of filters, where filter i contains
the output of FilterPolicy::CreateFilter() on all keys that are stored
in a block whose file offset falls within the range

    [ i*base ... (i+1)*base-1 ]

Currently, "base" is 2KB.  So for example, if blocks X and Y start in
the range [ 0KB .. 2KB-1 ], all of the keys in X and Y will be
converted to a filter by calling FilterPolicy::CreateFilter(), and the
resulting filter will be stored as the first filter in the filter
block.

The filter block is formatted as follows:

     [filter 0]
     [filter 1]
     [filter 2]
     ...
     [filter N-1]

     [offset of filter 0]                  : 4 bytes
     [offset of filter 1]                  : 4 bytes
     [offset of filter 2]                  : 4 bytes
     ...
     [offset of filter N-1]                : 4 bytes

     [offset of beginning of offset array] : 4 bytes
     lg(base)                              : 1 byte

The offset array at the end of the filter block allows efficient
mapping from a data block offset to the corresponding filter.

"stats" Meta Block
------------------

This meta block contains a bunch of stats.  The key is the name
of the statistic.  The value contains the statistic.
TODO(postrelease): record following stats.
  data size
  index size
  key size (uncompressed)
  value size (uncompressed)
  number of entries
  number of data blocks