Re: Sub-millisecond [autovacuum_]vacuum_cost_delay broken - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Nathan Bossart
Subject Re: Sub-millisecond [autovacuum_]vacuum_cost_delay broken
Date
Msg-id 20230313231008.GB428842@nathanxps13
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Sub-millisecond [autovacuum_]vacuum_cost_delay broken  (Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: Sub-millisecond [autovacuum_]vacuum_cost_delay broken
List pgsql-hackers
>   * NOTE: although the delay is specified in microseconds, the effective
> - * resolution is only 1/HZ, or 10 milliseconds, on most Unixen.  Expect
> - * the requested delay to be rounded up to the next resolution boundary.
> + * resolution is only 1/HZ on systems that use periodic kernel ticks to wake
> + * up.  This may cause sleeps to be rounded up by 1-20 milliseconds on older
> + * Unixen and Windows.

nitpick: Could the 1/HZ versus 20 milliseconds discrepancy cause confusion?
Otherwise, I think this is the right idea.

> + * CAUTION: if interrupted by a signal, this function will return, but its
> + * interface doesn't report that.  It's not a good idea to use this
> + * for long sleeps in the backend, because backends are expected to respond to
> + * interrupts promptly.  Better practice for long sleeps is to use WaitLatch()
> + * with a timeout.

I'm not sure this argument follows.  If pg_usleep() returns if interrupted,
then why are we concerned about delayed responses to interrupts?

> -        delay.tv_usec = microsec % 1000000L;
> -        (void) select(0, NULL, NULL, NULL, &delay);
> +        delay.tv_nsec = (microsec % 1000000L) * 1000;
> +        (void) nanosleep(&delay, NULL);

Using nanosleep() seems reasonable to me.

-- 
Nathan Bossart
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com



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