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+# Ra log compaction
+
+This is a living document capturing current work on log compaction.
+
+## Overview
+
+
+Compaction in Ra is intrinsically linked to the snapshotting
+feature. Standard Raft snapshotting removes all entries in the Ra log
+that precedes the snapshot where the snapshot is a full representation of
+the state machine state. 
+
+
+### Ra Server log worker responsibilities
+
+* Write checkpoints and snapshots
+* Perform compaction runs
+* report segments to be deleted back to the ra server (NB: the worker does
+not perform the segment deletion itself, it needs to report changes back to the
+ra server first). The ra server log worker maintains its own list of segments
+to avoid double processing
+
+
+```mermaid
+sequenceDiagram
+    participant segment-writer
+    participant ra-server
+    participant ra-server-log
+
+    segment-writer--)ra-server: new segments
+    ra-server-)+ra-server-log: new segments
+    ra-server-log->>ra-server-log: phase 1 compaction
+    ra-server-log-)-ra-server: segment changes (new, to be deleted)
+    ra-server-)+ra-server-log: new snapshot
+    ra-server-log->>ra-server-log: write snapshot
+    ra-server-log->>ra-server-log: phase 1 compaction
+    ra-server-log-)-ra-server: snapshot written, segment changes
+```
+
+### Log sections
+
+#### Normal log section
+
+The normal log section is the contiguous log that follows the last snapshot.
+
+#### Compacting log section
+
+The compacting log section consists of all live raft indexes that are lower
+than or equal to the last snapshot taken.
+
+![compaction](compaction1.jpg)
+
+### Compacted segments: naming (phase 3 compaction)
+
+Segment files in a Ra log have numeric names incremented as they are written.
+This is essential as the order is required to ensure log integrity.
+
+Desired Properties of phase 3 compaction:
+
+* Retain immutability, entries will never be deleted from a segment. Instead they
+will be written to a new segment.
+* lexicographic sorting of file names needs to be consistent with order of writes
+* Compaction walks from the old segment to new
+* Easy to recover after unclean shutdown
+
+Segments will be compacted when 2 or more adjacent segments fit into a single
+segment.
+
+The new segment will have the naming format `OLD-NEW.segment`
+
+This means that a single segment can only be compacted once e.g
+`001.segment -> 001-001.segment` as after this  there is no new name available
+and it has to wait until it can be compacted with the adjacent segment. Single
+segment compaction could be optional and only triggered when a substantial,
+say 75% or more entries / data can be deleted.
+
+This naming format means it is easy to identify dead segments after an unclean
+exit.
+
+During compaction a different extension will be used: `002-004.compacting` and
+after an unclean shutdown any such files will be removed. Once synced it will be
+renamed to `.segment` and some time after the source files will be deleted (Once
+the Ra server has updated its list of segments).
+
+
+![segments](compaction2.jpg)
+
+
+
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