I noticed that the TID type is cataloged as typbyval = f, despite the fact that it is 6 bytes, and so could be made typbyval = t on 64-bit platforms (i.e. typbyval = FLOAT8PASSBYVAL) with a little work.
This matters because a major cost during CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY is a TID-based datum sort (this is probably most of the cost over and above a conventional CREATE INDEX). Based on prior experience, I'd guess that making the type pass-by-value on 64-bit machines would make that sort about twice as fast. This would give CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY a nice overall performance boost. SortSupport would also help, but I would not bother with abbreviation to get some benefit on 32-bit platforms -- that would prevent 64-bit platforms from using tuplesort's onlyKey optimization, which matters quite a bit. Given the increasing rarity of 32-bit platforms these days, basic SortSupport seems best. I'm more than a little busy at the moment, so I would be happy for someone else to write the patch. It seems worthwhile. -- Peter Geoghegan -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
