Re: MVCC & indexes? - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From mark@mark.mielke.cc
Subject Re: MVCC & indexes?
Date
Msg-id 20061101002025.GA21873@mark.mielke.cc
Whole thread Raw
In response to MVCC & indexes?  (Ivan Voras <ivoras@fer.hr>)
List pgsql-performance
On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 10:55:40PM +0100, Ivan Voras wrote:
> Ok, so MVCC is the best thing since a guy put a round stone on a stick
> and called it "the wheel", but I've seen several references on this list
> about "indexes not being under MVCC" - at least that's how I read it,
> the original posts were explaining why indexes can't be used for solving
> MIN()/MAX()/COUNT() aggregates. Is this correct?

> In particular, I'm trying to find out is there (b)locking involved when
> concurrently updating and/or inserting records in an indexed table. My
> guess is that, since PG does copy+delete on updating, even updating a
> non-indexed field will require fixups in the index tree (to point to the
> new record) and thus (b)locking.

Short bits of blocking. The PostgreSQL index 'problem', is that indexes
are conservative. They only guarantee to return at least as much data as
you should see. They cannot be used to limit what you see to only as much
as you should see.

Cheers,
mark

--
mark@mielke.cc / markm@ncf.ca / markm@nortel.com     __________________________
.  .  _  ._  . .   .__    .  . ._. .__ .   . . .__  | Neighbourhood Coder
|\/| |_| |_| |/    |_     |\/|  |  |_  |   |/  |_   |
|  | | | | \ | \   |__ .  |  | .|. |__ |__ | \ |__  | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
                       and in the darkness bind them...

                           http://mark.mielke.cc/


pgsql-performance by date:

Previous
From: "Luke Lonergan"
Date:
Subject: Re: Help w/speeding up range queries?
Next
From: Tom Lane
Date:
Subject: Re: Help w/speeding up range queries?