Re: Race conditions in logical decoding - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Alvaro Herrera
Subject Re: Race conditions in logical decoding
Date
Msg-id aq0sA8aF8q6kTmJM@alvherre.pgsql
Whole thread
In response to Re: Race conditions in logical decoding  (Antonin Houska <ah@cybertec.at>)
Responses Re: Race conditions in logical decoding
List pgsql-hackers
On 2026-Sep-17, Antonin Houska wrote:

> > +        for (int i = 0; i < nrunning; i++)
> > +        {
> > +            TransactionId running_xid = running->xids[i];
> > +
> > +            if (bsearch(&running_xid, snap->xip, snap->xcnt,
> > +                        sizeof(TransactionId), xidComparator) != NULL)
> > +                XactLockTableWait(running_xid, NULL, NULL, XLTW_None);
> > +        }
> > +    }
> 
> I don't understand why you check all transactions in procarray, instead of
> only those in snap->xip.

Hmm, but he does: for all the transactions that are running, only those
that are found by bsearch() in the snap->xip array are waited for.  Is
that not what we want?

I guess we could do it the other way around: iterate for each item on
snap->xip and search for those in running->xids.  Is that what you
suggest?

We don't know offhand which array is largest; it would be better to
iterate on the smaller one and bsearch the largest.  (Or maybe if both
are sorted, scan them simultaneously.)  I don't find any reference to
say that running_xid is sorted.


I don't understand these two paragraphs:

     * A subtransaction is covered by its top-level transaction, which is in
     * snap->xip as well, or was purged from it because it is below xmin and
     * thus finished long ago.
     *
     * Historic snapshots do not need this: between xmin and xmax they rely on
     * xip alone, and transactions below xmin had left the procarray by the
     * time the xl_running_xacts record that set xmin was written.


-- 
Álvaro Herrera         PostgreSQL Developer  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"After a quick R of TFM, all I can say is HOLY CR** THAT IS COOL! PostgreSQL was
amazing when I first started using it at 7.2, and I'm continually astounded by
learning new features and techniques made available by the continuing work of
the development team."
Berend Tober, http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2007-08/msg01009.php



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