Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> writes:
> On 2022-04-17 11:51:58 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> The fact that we have a snapshot at the instant of fetch doesn't prove
>> that it existed continually since we fetched the toast reference,
>> which seems to be the condition we actually need to assure.
> Right.
>> (And TBH I see little reason to think that whether the snapshot is the
>> CatalogSnapshot or not changes things in any meaningful way.)
> It is a meaningful difference, see e.g. the bug referenced above.
Well, that's true given the current arrangements for managing
CatalogSnapshot; but that doesn't make the CatalogSnapshot any
less of a protection when it exists. The direction I was vaguely
imagining is that we create some refcount-like infrastructure
directly ensuring that once a snapshot is used to read a toast
reference, it gets kept around until we dereference or discard
that reference. With a scheme like that, there'd be no reason to
discriminate against a CatalogSnapshot as being the protective
snapshot.
(I hasten to add that I have no idea how to make this half-baked
plan work, and there may be better solutions anyway.)
>> While it's something to worry about, there's no reason to think
>> that v15 is any worse than prior versions in this area, is there?
>> So I'm inclined to remove this from the list of v15 open items,
>> or at least demote the remaining concern to "older bug" status.
> Yes.
OK, I'll update the open-items page.
regards, tom lane
