Bug #42992 Wrong documentation about table comment for InnoDB tables
Submitted: 18 Feb 2009 21:18 Modified: 6 Mar 2009 19:00
Reporter: Mario Beck Email Updates:
Status: Closed Impact on me:
None 
Category:MySQL Server: Documentation Severity:S3 (Non-critical)
Version:5.1 OS:Any
Assigned to: Paul DuBois CPU Architecture:Any
Tags: data_free, innodb, Reference Manual, show table status

[18 Feb 2009 21:18] Mario Beck
Description:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/show-table-status.html describes the fields of the SHOW TABLE STATUS command. After the bullet list is the following paragraph:
<quote>
In the table comment, InnoDB tables report the free space of the tablespace to which the table belongs. For a table located in the shared tablespace, this is the free space of the shared tablespace. If you are using multiple tablespaces and the table has its own tablespace, the free space is for only that table. Free space means the number of completely free 1MB extents minus a safety margin. Even if free space displays as 0, it may be possible to insert rows as long as new extents need not be allocated.
</quote>
This is no longer true since 5.1.24. See Bug#32440.

How to repeat:
Read http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/show-table-status.html

Suggested fix:
Delete the paragraph.
[18 Feb 2009 22:33] MySQL Verification Team
Thank you for the bug report.
[6 Mar 2009 19:00] Paul DuBois
Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant products.

The InnoDB free-space information is in the Data_free column as of 5.1.24/6.0.5.