I have some questions regarding InnoDB deletion process.

As far as I know, when we issue a DELETE command to a row stored in a InnoDB table, the row contents are stored in the UNDO Log, and the contents of the row are only deleted when the last transaction after the DELETE transaction has finished. But what actually happens to the row that was deleted? Is any disk space ever released to the OS, or are the contents simply erased? Defragmenting a table is only done through OPTIMIZE TABLE, or are there any automatic threads responsible for rearranging the rows? And if the are no such threads, how do we maintain tables which suffer from many deletions?

I hope I made myself clear. Thanks in advance,

    Arlindo Neto.