On Fri, 8 May 2026 15:07:13 +0900
Michael Paquier <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> This is a follow-up of the previous thread about $subject, with a
> reworked patch set for discussion in v20, as I care about the subject:
> https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[email protected]
> 
> The main feedback of the previous thread is that the previous
> implementation with its callbacks for each vartag was not liked much,
> and their were concerns with pointer redirections and performance.
> This patch set uses what I am calling the "brutal" approach, relying
> on a vartag_external of a varlena or the atttype of the TOAST relation
> to decide which external toast pointer we should use.  This uses no
> function pointers, and patches the code to deal with Oid or Oid8 TOAST
> values where it matters.  So, this time, performance cannot really be
> an issue.
> 
> The patch set is structured so as all the ground work happens first
> (most of it comes from the previous patch set, reorganized a bit), and
> the introduction of the varatt pieces are last, based on the following
> rules:
> - A table can use a 8-byte TOAST value with a new reloption, named
> toast_value_type that can be set to "oid" (default) or "oid8",
> creating a TOAST table with a value of the assigned type.  This
> includes support for dumps as well as binary upgrades, so as the
> atttype of the chunk_id of the TOAST table is preserved.  A table with
> a TOAST type assigned cannot be changed to a different type through a
> VACUUM FULL or a rewrite, as a matter of implementation simplicity.
> - Renames and cleanup of various areas related to varatt_external,
> renaming things to use OID.
> - The 8-byte TOAST values rely on a Oid8, whose value is retrieved
> from the control file extended by 4 bytes.  The code supports
> wraparound of values so as we don't assign anything between 0 and
> FirstNormalObjectId for the lower bytes, same way as before.
> 
> The last patch introduces a new vartag_external and the new
> varatt_external_oid8, with an Oid8 as value.  Well, not exactly, the
> patch uses two uint32 fields so as the structure is packed without
> padding, as of:
> typedef struct varatt_external_oid8
> {
>    int32       va_rawsize;
>    uint32      va_extinfo;
>    uint32      va_valueid_lo;
>    uint32      va_valueid_hi;
>    Oid         va_toastrelid;
> } varatt_external_oid8;
> 
> Note that if applying all the patches except the last one, the code
> would use an varatt_external_oid with an oid8 TOAST table.  This
> works, the split is to make reviews easier.  An oid8 TOAST table
> always uses a varatt_external_oid8.
> 
> I have done a lot of back-and-forth in the patch to try to find a good
> balance between the manipulation of the varlenas in the detoast and
> compression paths, as well as reorderbuffer.c and amcheck.  And I have
> finished with the attached, which is kind of nice.  The last patch has
> a low footprint:
> 9 files changed, 537 insertions(+), 208 deletions(-)

I applied the patches to the master branch and run a simple test.

After running:
  
 $ pg_resetwal -o 4300000000 -D data

 CREATE TABLE tbl_oid8(t text) with (toast_value_type = 'oid8');
 ALTER TABLE tbl_oid8 ALTER t SET STORAGE EXTERNAL;
 CREATE TABLE tbl_oid(t text) with (toast_value_type = 'oid');
 ALTER TABLE tbl_oid ALTER t SET STORAGE EXTERNAL;

 INSERT INTO tbl_oid8 VALUES (repeat(md5('x'),100));
 INSERT INTO tbl_oid VALUES (repeat(md5('x'),100));

 SELECT tableoid, t = repeat(md5('x'),100) FROM tbl_oid8;
 tableoid | ?column? 
----------+----------
  5032704 | t
(1 row)

 SELECT chunk_id, chunk_seq FROM pg_toast.pg_toast_5032704;
  chunk_id  | chunk_seq 
------------+-----------
 4300000010 |         0
 4300000010 |         1
(2 rows)

 SELECT tableoid, t = repeat(md5('x'),100) FROM tbl_oid;
 tableoid | ?column? 
----------+----------
  5032709 | t
(1 row)

 SELECT chunk_id, chunk_seq FROM pg_toast.pg_toast_5032709;
 chunk_id | chunk_seq 
----------+-----------
  5032715 |         0
  5032715 |         1
(2 rows)

This appears to work as expected.

I noticed one issue, though.
When toast_value_type is specified as something other than oid or oid8, the 
error
message is:

 postgres=# CREATE TABLE tbl(t text) with (toast_value_type = 'x');
 ERROR:  invalid value for enum option "toast_value_type": x
 DETAIL:  Valid values are "oid".

The detail message should be updated to include oid8.


I also have a few small comments on the patches.

- 0009

(1)
The commit message says:

 TOAST pointers still rely on varatt_external and a single vartag, with
 all the values inserted in the bigint TOAST tables fed from the existing
 OID value generator. 

This made me a bit confused because chunk_ids insereted into TOAST tables using 
oid8
are generated by GetNewObjectId8().

+               else if (toast_typid == OID8OID)
+                       toast_pointer.va_valueid = GetNewObjectId8();

This value is later cast to Oid here, so what is actually stored is a 4-byte 
chunk_id,
but saying that the values are "fed from the existing OID value generator" seems
a bit inaccurate to me.

(2)
        /*
-        * Choose an OID to use as the value ID for this toast value.
+        * Choose a new value to use as the value ID for this toast value, be it
+        * for OID or int8-based TOAST relations.

This patch relies on oid8, introduced by b139bd3b6ef, rather than int8, so, I
wonder if this comment sould also be updated.

(3)
 belonging to the owning table.  Every
-<acronym>TOAST</acronym> table has the columns 
<structfield>chunk_id</structfield> (an OID
-identifying the particular <acronym>TOAST</acronym>ed value),
+<acronym>TOAST</acronym> table has the columns
+<structfield>chunk_id</structfield> (an OID or an 8-byte integer identifying
+the particular <acronym>TOAST</acronym>ed value),
 <structfield>chunk_seq</structfield> (a sequence number for the chunk within 
its value),

Similarly, I think the documentation should mention oid8 rather than 8-byte
integer. That would also be consistent with the CREATE TABLE documentation for
the toast_value_type parameter.

- 0011

(4)
+                                       /*
+                                        * Check if this value already exists 
in the new toast
+                                        * table (corner case during table 
rewrite with multiple
+                                        * versions of the same row).
+                                        */
+                                       if (toastrel_valueid_exists(toastrel, 
va_valueid))
+                                       {
+                                               /* Match, so short-circuit the 
data storage loop below */
+                                               data_todo = 0;
+                                       }

The same code appears later, together with a more detailed comment. How about
moving the detailed comment here instead, or simply referring to the later 
comment?

(5)
+/* Is varlena datum a pointer to on-disk toasted data with 8-byte value ID? */
+static inline bool
+VARATT_IS_EXTERNAL_ONDISK_OID8(const void *PTR)
+{
+       return VARATT_IS_EXTERNAL(PTR) && VARTAG_EXTERNAL(PTR) == 
VARTAG_ONDISK_OID8;
 }

This macro is defined but not used. Is it intended to be used in places that
check VARTAG_ONDISK_OID8 directly, for example:

+       if (VARTAG_EXTERNAL(attr) == VARTAG_ONDISK_OID8)

?

(6)

 any.  Allowing for the varlena header bytes,
-the total size of an on-disk <acronym>TOAST</acronym> pointer datum is 
therefore 18
-bytes regardless of the actual size of the represented value.
+the total size of an on-disk <acronym>TOAST</acronym> pointer datum is 18
+bytes when using an OID as <structfield>chunk_id</structfield>, or 22 bytes
+when using an 8-byte integer, regardless of the actual size of the represented
+value.
 </para>

Should this also refer to Oid8 rather than 8-byte integner, for consistency?

Regards,
Yugo Nagata

-- 
Yugo Nagata <[email protected]>


Reply via email to