On 04/01/2020 03:47, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> Attached is v28, which fixes bitrot from my recent commits to refactor
> VACUUM-related code in nbtpage.c.
I started to read through this gigantic patch. I got about 1/3 way
through. I wrote minor comments directly in the attached patch file,
search for "HEIKKI:". I wrote them as I read the patch from beginning to
end, so it's possible that some of my questions are answered later in
the patch. I didn't have the stamina to read through the whole patch
yet, I'll continue later.
One major design question here is about the LP_DEAD tuples. There's
quite a lot of logic and heuristics and explanations related to unique
indexes. To make them behave differently from non-unique indexes, to
keep the LP_DEAD optimization effective. What if we had a separate
LP_DEAD flag for every item in a posting list, instead? I think we
wouldn't need to treat unique indexes differently from non-unique
indexes, then. I tried to search this thread to see if that had been
discussed already, but I didn't see anyone proposing that approach.
Another important decision here is the on-disk format of these tuples.
The format of IndexTuples on a b-tree page has become really
complicated. The v12 changes to store TIDs in order did a lot of that,
but this makes it even more complicated. I know there are strong
backwards-compatibility reasons for the current format, but
nevertheless, if we were to design this from scratch, what would the
B-tree page and tuple format be like?
- Heikki
