Re: [PATCHES] table/index fillfactor control, try 2

2006-06-19 Thread Simon Riggs
On Mon, 2006-06-19 at 14:36 +0900, ITAGAKI Takahiro wrote:
 Simon Riggs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
2. Store the structures in AM's meta page. But heaps don't have meta 
   pages.
  
  But perhaps they should? That sounds very similar to the idea of
  non-transactional pg_class data.
 
 Presently, I suppose the parameters are not modified so many times.
 They are set only on build time or maintenance.
 
 I think we will need metapages in the future, but not right now. If we will
 provide an automatic configurator for fillfactors (or other parameters),
 parameters might be changed every time the configurator runs, for example,
 per autovacuum.

Yes, I can see that future too.

  The metagpages thought would require some consolidation from various
  other proposals, so we'll need to wait for wider discussion on that.
 
 I agree, but it is easy to move the metadata from catalog to metapages.
 So the metapages thought can be reconciled among proposals that must need it.
 (pg_class_nt and dead tuples bitmaps?)

I've copied in Alvaro to comment on possible cross-overs between these
projects...

Looks like we've got a class of data that is similar in its frequency of
change to the pg_class_nt stuff.

Also, the discussion about having some of this type of info cached in
shared memory seems to have dried up. Should we now go for pg_class_nt
plus shared memory cache?

-- 
  Simon Riggs 
  EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com


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Re: [PATCHES] table/index fillfactor control, try 2

2006-06-16 Thread Simon Riggs
On Fri, 2006-06-16 at 13:33 +0900, ITAGAKI Takahiro wrote:
 This is a revised fillfactor patch. It uses WITH syntax and
 we can add new AM specific parameters easily.

Cool. I'll look at that in more detail.

  So we have a new element of the RelationData struct:
  void*rd_amopts;
  Which each AM defines and interprets.
 
 The internal structure is stored in the pg_class.relamopaque column as bytea.
 I guess it is not the best and there is room for discussion. I examined the
 following ideas, but they had complexities and difficulties.
 
  1. Add AM specific system tables (pg_heap, pg_btree, etc.) that may inherit
 pg_class. But it will impact the current source code terribly.

Hmmm, yep, not a good idea.

  2. Store the structures in AM's meta page. But heaps don't have meta pages.

But perhaps they should? That sounds very similar to the idea of
non-transactional pg_class data.

It would make a lot of sense if heaps had meta pages too, and that the
data within them was cached on the relcache just as index meta page data
will be for 8.2

  3. Store them into an array of text column that newly added to pg_class.
 But we hove to re-parse the array every time relations are loaded.

Not sure if thats a big overhead? Is it a big array? I hope not. We
should be aiming for as few parameters as possible for an index/heap,
otherwise we'll never be able to determine their correct settings.

  4. Add new system table, pg_class_option (relid, option name, value).
 But it has same problem as 3 and needs additional heap scannings.

No thanks.

 Therefore, I choose the as-is binary format to store the internal structures.
 Any comments or better ideas?

Well, its either metapages or array-on-pg_class for me.

The metagpages thought would require some consolidation from various
other proposals, so we'll need to wait for wider discussion on that.

-- 
  Simon Riggs
  EnterpriseDB  http://www.enterprisedb.com


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Re: [PATCHES] table/index fillfactor control, try 2

2006-06-16 Thread Tom Lane
Simon Riggs [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Fri, 2006-06-16 at 13:33 +0900, ITAGAKI Takahiro wrote:
 2. Store the structures in AM's meta page. But heaps don't have meta pages.

 But perhaps they should? That sounds very similar to the idea of
 non-transactional pg_class data.

The disadvantage of putting this stuff into metapages is that then you
need some entirely new protocol for letting clients get at it (and
pg_dump, for one, needs to).  I agree with putting it in a catalog.

An opaque bytea won't do though.  What I'd suggest is something real
close to the format used for GUC parameters in ALTER DATABASE SET and
ALTER USER SET, ie, pairs of keyword/value strings.  This way pg_dump
doesn't need very much smarts about what the values are that it's
dumping.

regards, tom lane

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