Tatsuo Ishii <ishii@postgresql.org> writes: > Currently pgbench -f (run custom script) executes vacuum against > pgbench_* tables before stating bench marking if -n (or --no-vacuum) > is not specified. If those tables do not exist, pgbench fails. To > prevent this, -n must be specified. For me this behavior seems insane > because "-f" does not necessarily suppose the existence of the > pgbench_* tables. Attached patch prevents pgbench from exiting even > if those tables do not exist.
I don't particularly care for this approach. I think if we want to do something about this, we should just make -f imply -n. Although really, given the lack of complaints so far, it seems like people manage to deal with this state of affairs just fine. Do we really need to do anything?
I also find this weird vacuum non existing tables rather bizarre. I think the first time I ever used pgbench I was confronted by the pgbench* tables not existing, despite the fact that I was trying to run my own script. Looking at --help it mentioned nothing about the pgbench_* tables, so I was pretty confused until I opened up the online docs.
I'm not really a fan of how this is done in the proposed patch, I'd vote for either skipping vacuum if -f is specified, or just doing a database wide vacuum in that case. Though, that might surprise a few people, so maybe the first option is better.
