sope

README

Sope

Sope (Friulian for "soup") - An embeddable database sandbox for exploring the fundamentals of database system design.

Sope is an educational database implementation built in Go to understand and explore the challenges of building a database system from the ground up. Designed to be embedded directly into Go applications, it uses Badger as its underlying key-value storage layer.

Overview

This project serves as a practical learning environment for database internals, implementing core database features while maintaining simplicity and clarity. As an embeddable database, Sope can be integrated directly into Go applications without requiring a separate database server. It is not intended for production use, but rather as a sandbox for experimenting with database concepts and architecture.

Features

• Semi-Open Schema: Flexible data modeling that balances structure with adaptability
• Primary Index Filtering: Efficient data retrieval using primary key indexes
• Table Scan Search: Full table scanning capabilities for query execution
• Vector Search: Support for vector-based similarity search operations
• Sorting & Pagination: Primitive implementations of result ordering and pagination

Technology Stack

• Language: Go
• Storage Engine: Badger - An embeddable, persistent key-value store

Project Goals

• Understand database internals through hands-on implementation
• Explore trade-offs in database design decisions
• Experiment with indexing strategies and query execution
• Learn about storage engine integration

Limitations

As an educational project, Sope has intentional limitations:

• Primitive sorting and pagination implementations
• No transaction support (currently)
• Limited query optimization
• No SQL interface

Contributing

This is a personal learning project, but feedback and suggestions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.

Acknowledgments

• Badger by Hypermode for the excellent K/V store
• The database systems community for inspiration and learning resources

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Named after the Friulian word for "soup" - because building a database is like making soup: you need the right ingredients, proper layering, and patience to let everything come together. NOTE: this explanation is an afterthought, I don't really know why I named it like this.