Re: Temporarily disable all table indices - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Mar 26, 2007, at 5:24 PM, Dmitry Koterov wrote:

Hello.

I need to perform a mass operation (UPDATE) on each table row. E.g. - modify one table column:

UPDATE tbl SET tbl_text = MD5(tbl_id);

The problem is that if this table contains a number of indices, such UPDATE is very very slow on large table.

I have to drop all indices on the table, then run the update (very quick) and after that - re-create all indices back. It is much more speedy. Unfortunately the table structure may change in the future ( e.g. - new indices are added), so I don't know exactly in this abstraction layer, what indices to drop and what - to re-create.

Is any way (or ready piece of code) to save all existed indices, drop them all and then - re-create after a mass UPDATE?

No, but you can use the pg_indexes view ( http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/view-pg-indexes.html) to dynamically determine what indexes a table has.

erik jones <erik@myemma.com>

software developer

615-296-0838

emma(r)