While playing around with large work_mem(or in that case a bit insane)
and maintenance_work_mem settings I noticed that EXPLAIN behaves quite
weird:
foo=# set work_mem to 200000;
SET
Time: 0.187 ms
foo=# explain select count(*) from testtable2 group by a; QUERY PLAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---GroupAggregate (cost=8845616.04..9731787.89 rows=37349188 width=4) -> Sort (cost=8845616.04..8985385.04
rows=55907600width=4) Sort Key: a -> Seq Scan on testtable2 (cost=0.00..1088488.00
rows=55907600 width=
4)
(4 rows)
Time: 0.364 ms
foo=# set work_mem to 2500000;
SET
Time: 0.195 ms
foo=# explain select count(*) from testtable2 group by a; QUERY PLAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------HashAggregate
(cost=1368026.00..1834890.85rows=37349188 width=4) -> Seq Scan on testtable2 (cost=0.00..1088488.00 rows=55907600
width=4)
(2 rows)
Time: 615.108 ms
it looks like that postgresql is actually allocating the memory for thehashtable of the HashAggregate which is a bit
unexpectedfor a plain
EXPLAIN.
Stefan
