The BLACKHOLE storage engine acts as a “black hole” that accepts data but throws it away and does not store it. Retrievals always return an empty result:

mysql> CREATE TABLE test(i INT, c CHAR(10)) ENGINE = BLACKHOLE;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.03 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES(1,'record one'),(2,'record two');
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM test;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

To enable the BLACKHOLE storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke configure with the --with-blackhole-storage-engine option.

To examine the source for the BLACKHOLE engine, look in the sql directory of a MySQL source distribution.

When you create a BLACKHOLE table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. There are no other files associated with the table.

The BLACKHOLE storage engine supports all kinds of indexes. That is, you can include index declarations in the table definition.

You can check whether the BLACKHOLE storage engine is available with the SHOW ENGINES statement.

Inserts into a BLACKHOLE table do not store any data, but if the binary log is enabled, the SQL statements are logged (and replicated to slave servers). This can be useful as a repeater or filter mechanism. Suppose that your application requires slave-side filtering rules, but transferring all binary log data to the slave first results in too much traffic. In such a case, it is possible to set up on the master host a “dummy” slave process whose default storage engine is BLACKHOLE, depicted as follows:

The master writes to its binary log. The “dummy” mysqld process acts as a slave, applying the desired combination of replicate-do-* and replicate-ignore-* rules, and writes a new, filtered binary log of its own. (See Section 16.1.3, “Replication and Binary Logging Options and Variables”.) This filtered log is provided to the slave.

The dummy process does not actually store any data, so there is little processing overhead incurred by running the additional mysqld process on the replication master host. This type of setup can be repeated with additional replication slaves.

INSERT triggers for BLACKHOLE tables work as expected. However, because the BLACKHOLE table does not actually store any data, UPDATE and DELETE triggers are not activated: The FOR EACH ROW clause in the trigger definition does not apply because there are no rows.

Other possible uses for the BLACKHOLE storage engine include:

The BLACKHOLE engine is transaction-aware, in the sense that committed transactions are written to the binary log and rolled-back transactions are not.

Column Filtering

When using row-based replication, (binlog_format=ROW), a slave where the last columns are missing from a table is supported, as described in the section Section 16.4.1.5, “Replication with Differing Table Definitions on Master and Slave”.

This filtering works on the slave side, that is, the columns are copied to the slave before they are filtered out. There are at least two cases where it is not desirable to copy the columns to the slave:

Master column filtering can be achieved using the BLACKHOLE engine. This is carried out in a way similar to how master table filtering is achieved - by using the BLACKHOLE engine and the option --replicate-[do|ignore]-table.

The setup for the master is:

CREATE TABLE t1 (public_col_1, ..., public_col_N,
                 secret_col_1, ..., secret_col_M) ENGINE=MyISAM;

The setup for the trusted slave is:

CREATE TABLE t1 (public_col_1, ..., public_col_N) ENGINE=BLACKHOLE;

The setup for the untrusted slave is:

CREATE TABLE t1 (public_col_1, ..., public_col_N) ENGINE=MyISAM;