Few day ago a faced a problem: Pl/PgSQL procedure works slower when running in parallel threads. I found the correlation between number of assignments in procedure code and performance. I decided to write the simple benchmark procedures and perform some test on PostgreSQL 9.6.5 database installed on the server with 20 CPU cores (2 Xeon E5-2690V2 CPUs).
This benchmark showed me that a simple Pl/PgSQL procedure with a simple loop inside works slower when running even in 2 threads. There is a procedure:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION benchmark_test() RETURNS VOID AS $$
DECLARE
v INTEGER; i INTEGER;
BEGIN
for i in 1..1000 loop
v := 1;
end loop;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
What is the point? I know, that Pl/PgSQL performs a SELECT query to calculate each value for assignment but I didn't expect that it produce side effects like this. If there is some buffer lock or anything else?
