Re: ACM Sigmod interview with Bruce Lindsay - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: ACM Sigmod interview with Bruce Lindsay
Date
Msg-id 28923.1123386664@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: ACM Sigmod interview with Bruce Lindsay  (Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>)
List pgsql-general
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Mike Mascari wrote:
>> How long has a partial index implementation been in PostgreSQL?

> We have had partial indexes since the Berkeley days, per-1996, but we
> have improved them quite a bit.

We inherited code for the feature from Berkeley, but it was broken for
some considerable period of time.  I find this in the CVS logs:

2001-07-16 01:06  tgl

    * doc/src/sgml/indices.sgml, doc/src/sgml/ref/create_index.sgml,
    src/backend/bootstrap/bootstrap.c, src/backend/catalog/index.c,
    src/backend/commands/command.c, src/backend/commands/indexcmds.c,
    src/backend/executor/execUtils.c,
    src/backend/optimizer/path/indxpath.c,
    src/backend/optimizer/util/pathnode.c,
    src/backend/parser/analyze.c, src/backend/parser/gram.y,
    src/backend/parser/keywords.c, src/backend/tcop/utility.c,
    src/backend/utils/adt/ruleutils.c,
    src/backend/utils/adt/selfuncs.c, src/bin/pg_dump/pg_dump.c,
    src/bin/pg_dump/pg_dump.h, src/include/catalog/index.h,
    src/include/catalog/pg_proc.h, src/include/config.h.in,
    src/include/commands/defrem.h, src/include/nodes/execnodes.h,
    src/include/utils/builtins.h,
    src/interfaces/ecpg/preproc/keywords.c,
    src/interfaces/ecpg/preproc/preproc.y,
    src/test/regress/expected/create_index.out,
    src/test/regress/expected/portals_p2.out,
    src/test/regress/expected/sanity_check.out,
    src/test/regress/expected/select.out,
    src/test/regress/sql/create_index.sql,
    src/test/regress/sql/portals_p2.sql,
    src/test/regress/sql/select.sql: Partial indexes work again,
    courtesy of Martijn van Oosterhout.  Note: I didn't force an
    initdb, figuring that one today was enough.  However, there is a
    new function in pg_proc.h, and pg_dump won't be able to dump
    partial indexes until you add that function.

This is reflected in the 7.2 release notes.

In the context of the interview, I agree it's pretty amusing --- I
would've thought the academic DBMS community would see partial indexes
as ancient news.

            regards, tom lane

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