21.9.6.2. Limitations

The built-in read-write-split mechanism is very basic. Every query which starts with SELECT is considered a read request to be sent to a MySQL slave server. All other queries (such as SHOW statements) are considered as write requests that are sent to the MySQL master server. The build-in behavior can be overruled using SQL hints, or a user-defined callback function.

The read-write splitter is not aware of multi-statements. Multi-statements are considered as one statement. The decision of where to run the statement will be based on the beginning of the statement string. For example, if using mysqli_multi_query to execute the multi-statement SELECT id FROM test ; INSERT INTO test(id) VALUES (1), the statement will be redirected to a slave server because it begins with SELECT. The INSERT statement, which is also part of the multi-statement, will not be redirected to a master server.

Note

Applications must be aware of the consequences of connection switches that are performed for load balancing purposes. Please check the documentation on connection pooling and switching, transaction handling, failover load balancing and read-write splitting.