Resources about building an RDBMS

Question

I'm looking at implementing an RDBMS. Are there any good resources out there about how a database works internally, and the kinds of things I'd need to know when starting out to build my own? (Please no comments about whether it's a practical idea or not - just imagine it's for a hobby project or something).

Again - interested in the RDBMS design, not the Database design. And efficiency is very important (it seems like it's reasonably easy to design some kind of relational database like structure if I don't care about speed).

Answer 1

I'd suggest starting with Introduction to Database Systems and Transactional Information Systems. They should both have bibliographies to take you further.

Answer 2

There are a few textbooks about this sort of stuff out there, when I was in college, we did this for a class project. This book should really help you on your way Database Systems: The Complete Book

I forgot to mention it, but my code is on googlecode here: cs4420-dbase

Please forgive the fact it is written in java, but I was outvoted by my teammates on that decision. but the basic ideas are all still there. It handles file creation and handling as well as a simple SQL parser and optimizer. It handles basic indexing (b-tree) and "memory" management. Please forgive some of the lack of commenting and strange commenting, many late nights were spent on that project.

Answer 3

Building a RDMS is not trival, you need to combine classic CS knowledge from several fields together with deep knowledge about harddrives, OS specifics, filesystems, memory, cpu, caches to make it efficient.

A good article about architecture we are required to read is:

http://www.nowpublishers.com/product.aspx?product=DBS&doi=1900000002

For theoretical knowledge about databases I would recommend to buy a book on this topic, I can only talk about the book I use for this, which is Database Systems an Application-Oriented Approach by Kifer, Bernstein and Lewis.

You might want to look at some opensource databases for ideas.