TidesDB 8 PATCH (v8.5.3)

This patch focuses on performance improvements across the read path and clock cache, along with several API extensions.

The read path was optimized to reduce unnecessary work on cache misses and point lookups, including eliminating double deserialization, removing an incorrect sequential access hint that caused extra syscalls, and cutting down on avoidable allocations and formatting overhead. These changes significantly reduce CPU usage and improve cold-cache and point-get performance.

The clock cache was tightened by removing an ineffective fallback linear scan and avoiding unnecessary atomic operations on hot entries, improving lookup efficiency under load.

New API methods were added, including tidesdb_range_cost() for estimating iteration cost between two keys using only in-memory metadata (no disk I/O), and tidesdb_delete_column_family(), which deletes a column family via a column family pointer. Internal drop and delete paths were refactored to share a common implementation.

This patch also fixes cache key inconsistencies on Windows related to path separator handling across several block cache and SSTable paths.

https://tidesdb.com/ https://github.com/tidesdb/tidesdb/compare/v8.5.2...v8.5.3