Re: store narrow values in hash indexes? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: store narrow values in hash indexes?
Date
Msg-id 20160924141733.GA10033@momjian.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: store narrow values in hash indexes?  (Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 10:33:01AM +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 1:02 AM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Currently, hash indexes always store the hash code in the index, but
> > not the actual Datum.  It's recently been noted that this can make a
> > hash index smaller than the corresponding btree index would be if the
> > column is wide.  However, if the index is being built on a fixed-width
> > column with a typlen <= sizeof(Datum), we could store the original
> > value in the hash index rather than the hash code without using any
> > more space.  That would complicate the code, but I bet it would be
> > faster: we wouldn't need to set xs_recheck, we could rule out hash
> > collisions without visiting the heap, and we could support index-only
> > scans in such cases.
> >
> 
> What exactly you mean by Datum?  Is it for datatypes that fits into 64
> bits like integer.  I think if we are able to support index only scans
> for hash indexes for some data types, that will be a huge plus.
> Surely, there is some benefit without index only scans as well, which
> is we can avoid recheck, but not sure if that alone can give us any
> big performance boost.  As, you say, it might lead to some
> complication in code, but I think it is worth trying.
> 
> Won't it add some requirements for pg_upgrade as well?

Yes, pg_upgrade will mark the indexes as invalid and supply a script to
reindex them.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com

+ As you are, so once was I. As I am, so you will be. +
+                     Ancient Roman grave inscription +



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