WAL, or write-ahead log, is a form of journalling used as part of crash-safety and atomic commit support in databases like PostgreSQL and SQLite.
PostgreSQL's write-ahead log is a crucial feature that permits crash-safety and atomic commit to be implemented. It's also heavily used in PostgreSQL's point-in-time recovery, streaming replication, and archive based replication features, as well as hot physical backup.
In SQLite, the default method by which SQLite implements atomic commit and rollback is a rollback journal. Beginning with version 3.7.0, a new "Write-Ahead Log" option (hereafter referred to as "WAL") is available.
