Re: AIO v2.5 - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Hi Andres,

> > I didn't yet push
> >
> > > > Subject: [PATCH v2.14 13/29] aio: Add README.md explaining higher level design

I have several notes about 0003 / README.md:

1. I noticed that the use of "Postgres" and "postgres" is inconsistent.

2.

```
+pgaio_io_register_callbacks(ioh, PGAIO_HCB_SHARED_BUFFER_READV, 0);
```

Perhaps I'm a bit late here, but the name of the function is weird. It
registers a single callback, but the name is "_callbacks".

3. The use of "AIO Handle" and "AioHandle" is inconsistent.

4.

- pgaio_io_register_callbacks
- pgaio_io_set_handle_data_32

If I understand correctly one can register multiple callbacks per one
AIO Handle (right? ...). However I don't see an obvious way to match
handle data to the given callback. If all the callbacks get the same
handle data... well it's weird IMO, but we should explicitly say that.
On top of that we should probably explain in which order the callbacks
are going to be executed. If there are any guarantees in this respect
of course.

5. pgaio_io_set_handle_data_32(ioh, (uint32 *) buffer, 1)

Perhaps it's worth mentioning if `buffer` can be freed after the call
i.e. if it's stored by value or by reference. It's also worth
clarifying if the maximum number of buffers is limited or not.

6. It is worth clarifying if AIO allows reads and writes or only reads
at the moment. Perhaps it's also worth explicitly saying that AIO is
for disk IO only, not for network one.

7. It is worth clarifying how many times the callbacks are called when
reading multiple buffers. Is it guaranteed that the callbacks are
called ones, or if it somehow depends on the implementation, and also
what happens in the case if I/O succeeds partially.

8. I believe we should tell a bit more about the context in which the
callbacks are called. Particularly what happens to the memory contexts
and if I can allocate/free memory, can I throw ERRORs, can I create
new AIO Handles, is it expected that the callback should return
quickly, are the signals masked while the callback is executed, can I
use sockets, is it guaranteed that the callback is going to be called
in the same process (I guess so, but the text doesn't explicitly
promise that), etc.

9.

```
+Because acquisition of an IO handle
+[must always succeed](#io-can-be-started-in-critical-sections)
+and the number of AIO Handles
+[has to be limited](#state-for-aio-needs-to-live-in-shared-memory)
+AIO handles can be reused as soon as they have completed.
```

What pgaio_io_acquire() does if we are out of AIO Handles? Since it
always succeeds I guess it should block the caller in this case, but
IMO we should say this explicitly.

10.

> > because I want to integrate some language that could be referenced by
> > smgrstartreadv() (and more in the future), as we have been talking about.
>
> I tried a bunch of variations and none of them seemed great. So I ended up
> with a lightly polished version of your suggested comment above
> smgrstartreadv().  We can later see about generalizing it.

IMO the problem here is that README doesn't show the code that does IO
per se, and thus doesn't give the full picture of how AIO should be
used. Perhaps instead of referencing smgrstartreadv() it would be
better to provide a simple but complete example, one that opens a
binary file and reads 512 bytes from it by the given offset for
instance.

-- 
Best regards,
Aleksander Alekseev