Re: "Compacting" a relation - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Hannu Krosing
Subject Re: "Compacting" a relation
Date
Msg-id 1165304150.3117.5.camel@localhost.localdomain
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: "Compacting" a relation  (Jim Nasby <decibel@decibel.org>)
List pgsql-hackers
Ühel kenal päeval, P, 2006-12-03 kell 22:14, kirjutas Jim Nasby:
> On Nov 29, 2006, at 2:29 AM, Hannu Krosing wrote:
> > Ühel kenal päeval, K, 2006-11-29 kell 11:19, kirjutas Peter  
> > Eisentraut:
> >> vacuumlazy.c contains a hint "Consider compacting this relation"  
> >> but AFAICT,
> >> there is no indication anywhere how "compacting" is supposed to be  
> >> achieved.
> >> I guess this means VACUUM FULL or CLUSTER, but I don't think the  
> >> hint can be
> >> processed effectively by a user.
> >
> > I once had an online/concurrent/non-locking compacting script,  
> > which did
> > for each const_pk_col_with_largest_ctid staring starting from end of
> > relation
> >
> > UPDATE rel
> >    SET pk_col=pk_col
> >  WHERE pk_col = const_pk_col_with_largest_ctid
> >
> > until the tuple moved to another page as determined by
> >
> > SELECT ctid FROM rel where pk_col=const_pk_col_with_largest_ctid
> >
> > if the tuple moved to a larger page number then it was time for  
> > another
> > lazy vacuum.
> 
> Larger or smaller?

Larger, smaller is the expected behaviour without vacuum.

> There's a TODO about allowing control over what pages in a relation  
> you get back from FSM that would make this a lot easier. In the case  
> of a bloated table, you'd want to have the FSM favor handing out  
> pages at the beginning of the heap. If you combined that with a  
> special mode where new tuples would not be created on any page in the  
> last X percent of the heap, it would be trivial to clean up a bloated  
> table. Theoretically, you might be able to apply the same kind of  
> technique to cleaning up a bloated index.
> 
> BTW, the other reason to allow selecting where the FSM hands out data  
> is for keeping a table clustered. 

FSM is consulted only in case the new tuple does not fit on the same
page as old. for clustering putposes, this should also be optional.

> You might also be able to keep  
> indexes in a more optimal order on-disk (as I understand it, over  
> time the physical order of an index can become very different from  
> the index order).
> --
> Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
> EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)
> 
> 
-- 
----------------
Hannu Krosing
Database Architect
Skype Technologies OÜ
Akadeemia tee 21 F, Tallinn, 12618, Estonia

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