Re: Reduce timing overhead of EXPLAIN ANALYZE using rdtsc? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Lukas Fittl
Subject Re: Reduce timing overhead of EXPLAIN ANALYZE using rdtsc?
Date
Msg-id CAP53Pkx95w0brt7djsjeVN84HpwRhcwDyjFVh=A0b7zCtqPA7g@mail.gmail.com
Whole thread
In response to Re: Reduce timing overhead of EXPLAIN ANALYZE using rdtsc?  (Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>)
Responses Re: Reduce timing overhead of EXPLAIN ANALYZE using rdtsc?
List pgsql-hackers
On Sun, Apr 12, 2026 at 11:30 AM Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote:
>
> On 2026-04-12 14:20:31 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> > 166           uint64          loop_count;
> > 167
> > 168           loop_count = test_timing(test_duration, TIMING_CLOCK_SOURCE_SYSTEM, false);
> > >>>     CID 1691465:         Incorrect expression  (DIVIDE_BY_ZERO)
> > >>>     In function call "output", division by expression "loop_count" which may be zero has undefined behavior.
> > 169           output(loop_count);
> >
> > AFAICS it's correct to complain.  test_timing() visibly can return zero,
> > but of the three places where test_timing() is followed by output()
> > only one has a defense against that.
>
> I think it should be unreachable as-is (but we should fix it anyway): If the
> system clock source doesn't work, we have much bigger issues. If rdtscp works,
> rdtsc should better work as well...

Yeah, agreed, in practice this won't be reached, but good to fix.

> Maybe it's enough to add an Assert() to clarify this?  But I guess just
> printing a message in that unreachable case would also work.

I think either is fine. If we did it with a message, how about this at
the beginning of the output function?

if (loop_count == 0)
{
  printf(_("WARNING: No timing measurements collected. Report this as
a bug to <%s>.\n"), PACKAGE_BUGREPORT);
  return;
}

That'd align with the proposed patch to warn about calibrated TSC
frequency diverging more than 10%.

Thanks,
Lukas

--
Lukas Fittl



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