So when does index_form_tuple get called?
The single call of index_form_tuple in GiST core is in gistFormTuple which
initially compress any indexed value with a help of their compress methods.
Only tuples formed by gistFormTuple could be inserted in index.
Does every data type define a compress/decompress method? Even if it's not a
data type that normally gets very large?
Yes, any GiST opclass should have such methods. In trivial case it just returns
input value. As I remember, only R-Tree emulation over boxes, contrib/seg and
contrib/cube have simple compress method.
Well we cheated a bit and had heap/index_form_tuple convert the data to packed
format. This saves having to push small tuples through the toaster. So now
tuples can magically become toasted as soon as they go into a tuple even if
they never get pushed through the toaster.
Ok, it should be safe for GiST except some possible memory management issue.
index_form_tuple in GiST works in GiST's memory context which is short-live. Is
it possible issue for your patch? BTW, that's connected to GIN too.
So it's perfectly safe to just use DatumGetType and PG_GETARG_TYPE instead of
using DatumGetPointer and PG_GETARG_POINTER and having to manually cast
everywhere, no? It seems like there's a lot of extra pain to maintain the code
in the present style with all the manual casts.
Of course, I agree. Just PG_FREE_IF_COPY is extra call in support methods.
--
Teodor Sigaev E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www.sigaev.ru/
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