Re: PoC/WIP: Extended statistics on expressions - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tomas Vondra
Subject Re: PoC/WIP: Extended statistics on expressions
Date
Msg-id 2392f864-7ec1-38bb-1e78-71a9b2d78a95@enterprisedb.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: PoC/WIP: Extended statistics on expressions  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
Responses Re: PoC/WIP: Extended statistics on expressions
List pgsql-hackers

On 6/6/21 9:17 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@enterprisedb.com> writes:
>> On 6/6/21 7:37 AM, Noah Misch wrote:
>>> This added a "transformed" field to CreateStatsStmt, but it didn't mention
>>> that field in src/backend/nodes.  Should those functions handle the field?
> 
>> Yup, that's a mistake - it should do whatever CREATE INDEX is doing. Not
>> sure if it can result in error/failure or just inefficiency (due to
>> transforming the expressions repeatedly), but it should do whatever
>> CREATE INDEX is doing.
> 
> I'm curious about how come the buildfarm didn't notice this.  The
> animals using COPY_PARSE_PLAN_TREES should have failed.  The fact
> that they didn't implies that there's no test case that makes use
> of a nonzero value for this field, which seems like a testing gap.
> 

AFAICS the reason is pretty simple - the COPY_PARSE_PLAN_TREES checks
look like this:

    List       *new_list = copyObject(raw_parsetree_list);

    /* This checks both copyObject() and the equal() routines... */
    if (!equal(new_list, raw_parsetree_list))
        elog(WARNING, "copyObject() failed to produce an equal raw
                       parse tree");
    else
        raw_parsetree_list = new_list;
    }

But if the field is missing from all the functions, equal() can't detect
that copyObject() did not actually copy it. It'd detect a case when the
field was added just to one place, but not this. The CREATE INDEX (which
served as an example for CREATE STATISTICS) has exactly the same issue.


regards

-- 
Tomas Vondra
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company



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