Re: index creation on 7.3 - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: index creation on 7.3
Date
Msg-id 27755.1168405969@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: index creation on 7.3  (Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com>)
Responses Re: index creation on 7.3
List pgsql-general
Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com> writes:
> On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 17:17, Ben wrote:
> If I create an index on a table that needs to be vacuumed in 7.3, will the
> dead rows get indexed as well?

> Yes.  I think.  I'm pretty sure that's still true in 8.2. as well.  The
> way indexes work is that the index points to the oldest version of a
> tuple in existence, said tuple which then points to the next newer
> version and so on.

IIRC, CREATE INDEX will ignore tuples that are "definitely dead", ie,
too old to be visible to any open transaction.  It *will* (and must)
index tuples that are recently dead but might still be visible to some
open transaction.

            regards, tom lane

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