On 03/14/2015 06:04 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
Given the rather hostile response I got to http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[email protected] I was not planning to bring this topic up again until 9.6 development starts. However, as I said in that thread, this work is getting done now because of $dayjob deadlines, and I've realized that it would actually make a lot of sense to apply it before my expanded-arrays patch that's pending in the current commitfest. So I'm going to put on my flameproof long johns and post it anyway. I will add it to the 2015-06 commitfest, but I'd really rather deal with it now ...What this patch does is to remove setup_param_list() overhead for the common case of PLPGSQL_DTYPE_VAR variables (ie, any non-composite type). It does that by the expedient of keeping the ParamExternData image of such a variable valid at all times. That adds a few cycles to assignments to these variables, but removes more cycles from each use of them. Unless you believe that common plpgsql functions contain lots of dead stores, this is a guaranteed win overall. I'm seeing about 10% overall speedup (vs HEAD, with casserts off) for realistic simple plpgsql logic, such as this test case: create or replace function typicalspeed(n int) returns bigint as $$ declare res bigint := 0; begin for i in 1 .. n loop res := res + i; if i % 10 = 0 then res := res / 10; end if; end loop; return res; end $$ language plpgsql strict stable; For functions with lots of variables (or even just lots of expressions, since each one of those is a PLpgSQL_datum too), it's even more helpful. I have found no cases where it makes things worse, at least to within measurement error (run-to-run variability is a percent or two for me). The reason I would like to apply this now rather than wait for 9.6 is that by making parameter management more explicit it removes the need for the klugy changes in exec_eval_datum() that exist in http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[email protected] Instead, we could leave exec_eval_datum() alone and substitute read-only pointers only when manufacturing the parameter image of an expanded-object variable. If we do it in the other order then we'll be making an API change for exec_eval_datum() in 9.5 (assuming said patch gets in) and then reverting it come 9.6. So there you have it. Now, where'd I put those long johns ...
I'm inclined to say go for it. I can recall cases in the past where we have found some significant piece of work to be necessary after feature freeze in order to enable a piece of work submitted before feature freeze to proceed. This sounds like a similar case.
cheers andrew -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list ([email protected]) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
