Item::ValueCopy

README.md

@@ -441,11 +441,12 @@ and [#315](https://github.com/dgraph-io/badger/issues/315).
 
 There are multiple workarounds during iteration:
 
+1. Use `Item::ValueCopy` instead of `Item::Value` when retrieving value.
 1. Set `Prefetch` to true. Badger would then copy over the value and release the
    file lock immediately.
-2. When `Prefetch` is false, don't call `Item::Value` and do a pure key-only
+1. When `Prefetch` is false, don't call `Item::Value` and do a pure key-only
    iteration. This might be useful if you just want to delete a lot of keys.
-3. Do the writes in a separate transaction after the reads.
+1. Do the writes in a separate transaction after the reads.
 
 - **My writes are really slow. Why?**
 

db.go

@@ -941,7 +941,7 @@ func (db *DB) PurgeOlderVersions() error {
 		for it.Rewind(); it.Valid(); it.Next() {
 			item := it.Item()
 			if !bytes.Equal(lastKey, item.Key()) {
-				lastKey = y.Safecopy(lastKey, item.Key())
+				lastKey = y.SafeCopy(lastKey, item.Key())
 				continue
 			}
 			// Found an older version. Mark for deletion

db_test.go

@@ -53,6 +53,9 @@ func getItemValue(t *testing.T, item *Item) (val []byte) {
 	if v == nil {
 		return nil
 	}
+	another, err := item.ValueCopy(nil)
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	require.Equal(t, v, another)
 	return v
 }
 
@@ -1233,3 +1236,60 @@ func TestCreateDirs(t *testing.T) {
 	_, err = os.Stat(dir)
 	require.NoError(t, err)
 }
+
+func TestWriteDeadlock(t *testing.T) {
+	dir, err := ioutil.TempDir("", "badger")
+	fmt.Println(dir)
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	defer os.RemoveAll(dir)
+
+	opt := DefaultOptions
+	opt.Dir = dir
+	opt.ValueDir = dir
+	opt.ValueLogFileSize = 10 << 20
+	db, err := Open(opt)
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+
+	print := func(count *int) {
+		*count++
+		if *count%100 == 0 {
+			fmt.Printf("%05d\r", *count)
+		}
+	}
+
+	var count int
+	val := make([]byte, 10000)
+	require.NoError(t, db.Update(func(txn *Txn) error {
+		for i := 0; i < 1500; i++ {
+			key := fmt.Sprintf("%d", i)
+			rand.Read(val)
+			require.NoError(t, txn.Set([]byte(key), val))
+			print(&count)
+		}
+		return nil
+	}))
+
+	count = 0
+	fmt.Println("\nWrites done. Iteration and updates starting...")
+	err = db.Update(func(txn *Txn) error {
+		opt := DefaultIteratorOptions
+		opt.PrefetchValues = false
+		it := txn.NewIterator(opt)
+		for it.Rewind(); it.Valid(); it.Next() {
+			item := it.Item()
+
+			// Using Value() would cause deadlock.
+			// item.Value()
+			out, err := item.ValueCopy(nil)
+			require.NoError(t, err)
+			require.Equal(t, len(val), len(out))
+
+			key := y.Copy(item.Key())
+			rand.Read(val)
+			require.NoError(t, txn.Set(key, val))
+			print(&count)
+		}
+		return nil
+	})
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+}

iterator.go

@@ -86,6 +86,22 @@ func (item *Item) Value() ([]byte, error) {
 	return buf, err
 }
 
+// ValueCopy returns a copy of the value of the item from the value log, writing it to dst slice.
+// If nil is passed, or capacity of dst isn't sufficient, a new slice would be allocated and
+// returned. Tip: It might make sense to reuse the returned slice as dst argument for the next call.
+//
+// This function is useful in long running iterate/update transactions to avoid a write deadlock.
+// See Github issue: https://github.com/dgraph-io/badger/issues/315
+func (item *Item) ValueCopy(dst []byte) ([]byte, error) {
+	item.wg.Wait()
+	if item.status == prefetched {
+		return y.SafeCopy(dst, item.val), item.err
+	}
+	buf, cb, err := item.yieldItemValue()
+	defer runCallback(cb)
+	return y.SafeCopy(dst, buf), err
+}
+
 func (item *Item) hasValue() bool {
 	if item.meta == 0 && item.vptr == nil {
 		// key not found
@@ -374,7 +390,7 @@ func (it *Iterator) parseItem() bool {
 		// Consider keys: a 5, b 7 (del), b 5. When iterating, lastKey = a.
 		// Then we see b 7, which is deleted. If we don't store lastKey = b, we'll then return b 5,
 		// which is wrong. Therefore, update lastKey here.
-		it.lastKey = y.Safecopy(it.lastKey, mi.Key())
+		it.lastKey = y.SafeCopy(it.lastKey, mi.Key())
 	}
 
 FILL:
@@ -414,9 +430,9 @@ func (it *Iterator) fill(item *Item) {
 	item.expiresAt = vs.ExpiresAt
 
 	item.version = y.ParseTs(it.iitr.Key())
-	item.key = y.Safecopy(item.key, y.ParseKey(it.iitr.Key()))
+	item.key = y.SafeCopy(item.key, y.ParseKey(it.iitr.Key()))
 
-	item.vptr = y.Safecopy(item.vptr, vs.Value)
+	item.vptr = y.SafeCopy(item.vptr, vs.Value)
 	item.val = nil
 	if it.opt.PrefetchValues {
 		item.wg.Add(1)

table/iterator.go

@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ func (itr *blockIterator) parseKV(h header) {
 			itr.pos, h.klen, h.vlen, len(itr.data), h)
 		return
 	}
-	itr.val = y.Safecopy(itr.val, itr.data[itr.pos:itr.pos+uint32(h.vlen)])
+	itr.val = y.SafeCopy(itr.val, itr.data[itr.pos:itr.pos+uint32(h.vlen)])
 	itr.pos += uint32(h.vlen)
 }
 

y/y.go

@@ -75,8 +75,8 @@ func OpenTruncFile(filename string, sync bool) (*os.File, error) {
 	return os.OpenFile(filename, flags, 0666)
 }
 
-// Safecopy does append(a[:0], src...).
-func Safecopy(a []byte, src []byte) []byte {
+// SafeCopy does append(a[:0], src...).
+func SafeCopy(a []byte, src []byte) []byte {
 	return append(a[:0], src...)
 }