# Documentation about how Badger actually stores Dgraph data on disk **URL:** \ **Category:** Badger\ **Created:** [August 3, 2020, 11:49am UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/documentation-about-how-badger-actually-stores-dgraph-data-on-disk/9184 "2020-08-03T11:49:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gotjoshua](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/gotjoshua/32/4150_2.png) [@gotjoshua](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/gotjoshua)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 11:49am UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/documentation-about-how-badger-actually-stores-dgraph-data-on-disk/9184/1 "2020-08-03T11:49:55Z")
I am just starting to do a deep-dive into how badger is storing data. So, I am looking at the vlog files for zero and alpha and trying to make sense of it all. I want to create an offline-first system that is designed to sync seamlessly with dgraph/badger, thus I want to represent the data in IndexedDB as conveniently and efficiently as possible. I want to know: 1. How does badger persist its key-value pairs? 2. How does dgraph translate its triads into key-value pairs? 3. What is the relationship between alpha and zero? 4. How can I read the badger files to understand what it is storing where, and why? 4b. This includes the issues of encoding, compression and encryption - How to disable compression and re-encode the log file to human readable utf8? I assume that this is documented somewhere, but I didn’t find it in the level of detail I want. I did find this basic conceptual description: > **[Overview - Dgraph](https://docs.hypermode.com/dgraph/overview)** > Posting Lists get stored in Badger, in a key-value format, like so: > `(Predicate, Subject) --> PostingList` ## In Zero: I see that the vlog has many of these three slightly different sequences: `alpha:70800֚Bz1- , alpha:7080 0֚Bz1, alpha:70800Bz1-` and they are always followed by a number Another often repeated sequences is: `!badger!txn` ## In Alpha: I see that the `!badger!txn` sequence is also present, but I don’t find matching sequence numbers I can see the actual changes, eg. this is how the change of name@en from “michaellll” to “mikeee” is stored: `!badger!tx601517j@amemichaellll> \'`hnamemikeee\> '`hqb@!name'\> ~a,S Mikeee *enh v*!badger!txn>82881 ` ## Please Help! In addition to replies here in discuss, I am open to direct links to commits, documentation, blog posts, or whatever you find relevant for this deep dive. ---
**Author:** ![gotjoshua](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/gotjoshua/32/4150_2.png) [@gotjoshua](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/gotjoshua)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/documentation-about-how-badger-actually-stores-dgraph-data-on-disk/9184/2 "2020-08-03T20:02:50Z")
I assume that #4b is related to parsing protocol buffers: > **[Protocol Buffer Basics: Python](https://protobuf.dev/getting-started/pythontutorial/)** > > A basic Python programmers introduction to working with protocol buffers. But i have no idea how to go about reading the vlog and/or sst files and parsing them in order to output something more human readable… any help? ---
**Author:** ![dmai](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/dmai/32/1254_2.png) [@dmai](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/dmai)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/documentation-about-how-badger-actually-stores-dgraph-data-on-disk/9184/3 "2020-08-03T22:18:22Z")
Hi @gotjoshua. You can use the `dgraph debug` tool to inspect the content of the p directory of Dgraph Alpha. Here’s some docs that show some example output: [https://dgraph.io/docs/howto/#debug-tool-output](https://dgraph.io/docs/howto/#debug-tool-output) You can use Badger to open up a Badger DB (e.g., a Dgraph p directory) and iterate over the keys and values. You can also check out the [Dgraph paper](https://dgraph.io/paper) to learn about the underlying data format. ---
**Author:** ![gotjoshua](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/gotjoshua/32/4150_2.png) [@gotjoshua](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/gotjoshua)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/documentation-about-how-badger-actually-stores-dgraph-data-on-disk/9184/4 "2020-08-07T16:14:11Z")
Thanks for the reply, the debug tool is quite helpful! If I use a badger command line, can i access a locked folder? or i still need to shut down the alpha in order to have a look? Also, I’m wondering if there is anyone from the core team that could take time to answer this thread: > [@Querying for historical values, and creation and modification timestamps as dateTime](http://discuss.hypermode.com/t/querying-for-historical-values-and-creation-and-modification-timestamps-as-datetime/9097): > > I read that dgraph is configuring badger to keep all value mutations in the log permanently: [options.NumVersionsToKeep . We set this by default to 1 in Badger, but in Dgraph, we set this to infinity](https://dgraph.io/blog/post/badger-over-rocksdb-in-dgraph/#3d-access-key-value-versions-a-idanchor-3da) So… My question is, can we access that “infinite history” via dgraph queries? I am experimenting with adding explicit created and modified dateTime predicates, but it feels like this could/should be provided via an implicit function of some sort. Intuitively i would like this kind of query: { … Now (thanks to the debug tool) I can see that the infinite history is there, and I’d love to have easy access to it (without having to create additional dgraph structures for it) ---
**Author:** ![ibrahim](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/discuss.dgraph.io/ibrahim/32/6387_2.png) [@ibrahim](https://discuss.dgraph.io/u/ibrahim)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 2:06pm UTC](https://discuss.dgraph.io/t/documentation-about-how-badger-actually-stores-dgraph-data-on-disk/9184/5 "2020-08-09T14:06:24Z")
> [@gotjoshua](#): > > If I use a badger command line, can i access a locked folder? or i still need to shut down the alpha in order to have a look? You can open that directory in a read-only mode with `BypassDirLock` set to true in badger > It would be a good idea to just make a copy of the badger directory, delete the lock file and then perform whatever operations you want.