Re: Documentation on page files - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: Documentation on page files
Date
Msg-id 23868.1019319397@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Documentation on page files  (Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org>)
Responses Re: Documentation on page files  (Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net>)
List pgsql-hackers
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> writes:
> Chapter 7 of the Developers guide in about the Page Format on disk and it's
> a little out of date not to mention somewhat incomplete.

Indeed, this seems to have very little relation to reality :-(.
I didn't even realize that we had such a description in the SGML docs.
It's obviously not been updated for many years.  I'm not sure if the
"continuation" mechanism it describes ever existed at all, but it sure
hasn't been there since the code left Berkeley.

> 1. Is there documentation elsewhere (other than the source)?

Not that I can think of.  The most accurate information seems to be in
src/include/storage/bufpage.h; AFAICT all the comments in that file are
up-to-date.  In addition to this it'd be worth pulling out some
description of the "special space" structures used by the various index
access methods.

> 2. If not, would patches be accepted to correct the situation?

Go for it.
        regards, tom lane


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