Re: Is a pg_stat_force_next_flush() call sufficient for regression tests? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Kyotaro Horiguchi
Subject Re: Is a pg_stat_force_next_flush() call sufficient for regression tests?
Date
Msg-id 20230704.112924.1693682640969530760.horikyota.ntt@gmail.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Is a pg_stat_force_next_flush() call sufficient for regression tests?  (Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@enterprisedb.com>)
Responses Re: Is a pg_stat_force_next_flush() call sufficient for regression tests?
List pgsql-hackers
At Mon, 3 Jul 2023 15:45:52 +0200, Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@enterprisedb.com> wrote in 
> So I'm wondering if pg_stat_force_next_flush() is enough - AFAICS this
> only sets some flag for the *next* pgstat_report_stat() call, but how do
> we know that happens before the query execution?
> 
> Shouldn't there be something like pg_stat_flush() that actually does the
> flushing, instead of just setting the flag?

The reason for the function is that pg_stat_flush() is supposed not to
be called within a transaction.  AFAICS pg_stat_force_next_flush()
takes effect after a successfull transaction end and before the next
command execution.

To verify this, I put in an assertion to check that the flag gets
consumed before reading of pg_stat_io (a.diff), then ran pgbench with
the attached custom script. As expected, it didn't fire at all during
several trials. When I wrapped all lines in t.sql within a
begin-commit block, the assertion fired off immediately as a matter of
course.

Is there any chance concurrent backends or some other things can
actually hinder the backend from reusing buffers?

regards.

-- 
Kyotaro Horiguchi
NTT Open Source Software Center

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