Since version 2.7, RocksDB supports a special type of iterator (named tailing iterator) optimized for a use case in which new data is read as soon as it’s added to the database. Its key features are:

• Tailing iterator doesn’t create a snapshot when it’s created. Therefore, it can also be used to read newly added data (whereas ordinary iterators won’t see any record added after the iterator was created).
• It’s optimized for doing sequential reads — it might avoid doing potentially expensive seeks on SST files and immutable memtables in many cases.

To enable it, set ReadOptions::tailing to true when creating a new iterator. Note that tailing iterator currently supports only moving in the forward direction (in other words, Prev() and SeekToLast() are not supported).

Not all new data is guaranteed to be available to a tailing iterator. Seek() or SeekToFirst() on a tailing iterator can be thought of as creating an implicit snapshot — anything written after it may, but is not guaranteed to be seen.

Implementation details

A tailing iterator provides a merged view of two internal iterators:

• a mutable iterator, used to access current memtable contents only
• an immutable iterator, used to read data from SST files and immutable memtables

Both of these internal iterators are created by specifying kMaxSequenceNumber, effectively disabling filtering based on internal sequence numbers and enabling access to records inserted after the creation of these iterators. In addition, each tailing iterator keeps track of the database’s state changes (such as memtable flushes and compactions) and invalidates its internal iterators when it happens. This enables it to be always up-to-date.

Since SST files and immutable memtables don’t change, a tailing iterator can often get away by performing a seek operation only on the mutable iterator. For this purpose, it maintains the interval (prev_key, current_key] currently covered by the immutable iterator (in other words, there are no records with key k such that prev_key < k < current_key neither in SST files nor immutable memtables). Therefore, when Seek(target) is called and target is within that interval, immutable iterator is already at the correct position and it is not necessary to move it.