On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 1:54 AM, Jeff Janes <jeff.janes@gmail.com> wrote: > Attached is a patch that implements the vm scan for truncation. It > introduces a variable to hold the last blkno which was skipped during the > forward portion. Any blocks after both this blkno and after the last > inspected nonempty page (which the code is already tracking) must have been > observed to be empty by the current vacuum. Any other process rendering the > page nonempty are required to clear the vm bit, and no other process can set > the bit again during the vacuum's lifetime. So if the bit is still set, the > page is still empty without needing to inspect it.
Urgh. So if we do this, that forever precludes having HOT pruning set the all-visible bit.
I wouldn't say forever, as it would be easy to revert the change if something more important came along that conflicted with it.
I think what is being said here is that someone is already using this technique, or if not, then we actively want to encourage them to do so as an extension or as a submission to core.
In that case, I think the rely-on-VM technique sinks again, sorry Jim, Jeff. Probably needs code comments added.
Sure, that sounds like the consensus. The VM method was very efficient, but I agree it is pretty fragile and restricting.
That does still leave the prefetch technique, so all is not lost.
Can we see a patch with just prefetch, probably with a simple choice of stride? Thanks.
I probably won't get back to it this commit fest, so it can be set to returned with feedback. But if anyone has good ideas for how to set the stride (or detect that it is on SSD and so is pointless to try) I'd love to hear about them anytime.
