Re: Make use of unvolatize() in vac_truncate_clog() - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bertrand Drouvot
Subject Re: Make use of unvolatize() in vac_truncate_clog()
Date
Msg-id aZ82Ifv8J13dFa92@ip-10-97-1-34.eu-west-3.compute.internal
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Make use of unvolatize() in vac_truncate_clog()  (Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>)
Responses Re: Make use of unvolatize() in vac_truncate_clog()
List pgsql-hackers
Hi,

On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 02:33:29PM +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 24.02.26 19:16, Bertrand Drouvot wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 11:19:50AM -0600, Nathan Bossart wrote:
> > > On Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 05:08:09PM +0000, Bertrand Drouvot wrote:
> > > > This patch makes use of unvolatize() in vac_truncate_clog().
> > > > 
> > > > Note that it does not remove the warning but moves it to c.h (where unvolatize()
> > > > is defined) but that's consistent with what 481018f2804 did too.
> > > 
> > > Why is this preferable to marking the function parameter as volatile
> > 
> > I think that that would sound misleading for the other callers that don't really
> > need the volatile qualification.
> > 
> > > or  removing the volatile qualifier from the variable?
> > 
> > That looks mandatory according to 2d2e40e3bef.
> 
> Arguably, putting the volatile qualifier on the whole dbform is broader than
> required.  So you could imagine writing it something like this instead:
> 
>     FormData_pg_database *dbform = (Form_pg_database) GETSTRUCT(tuple);
>     volatile TransactionId *datfrozenxid_p;
>     volatile TransactionId *datminmxid_p;
> 
>     *datfrozenxid_p = dbform->datfrozenxid;
>     *datminmxid_p = dbform->datminmxid;

I think that looks like the best option as it also removes completely the 
volatile qual warning.

That's done that way in 0001 (also moving back from FormData_pg_database to 
Form_pg_database as pre 2d2e40e3bef).

Also, I'm using the same pattern in 0002 for vac_update_datfrozenxid() as
f65ab862e3b:

- was fixing the same kind of race as 2d2e40e3bef was fixing
- added a comment for vac_update_datfrozenxid() mentioning the race in
vac_truncate_clog(). So that's better if they both use the same pattern.

Regards,

-- 
Bertrand Drouvot
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com

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