On 03.02.25 13:19, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2025-Feb-03, Ashutosh Bapat wrote:
>
>> ```
>> If the
>> constraint is <literal>NOT ENFORCED</literal>, the database system will
>> not check the constraint. It is then up to the application code to
>> ensure that the constraints are satisfied. The database system might
>> still assume that the data actually satisfies the constraint for
>> optimization decisions where this does not affect the correctness of the
>> result.
>> ```
>
> IMO the third sentence should be removed because it is bogus. There's
> no situation in which a not-enforced constraint can be used for any
> query optimizations -- you cannot know if a constraint remains valid
> after it's been turned NOT ENFORCED, because anyone could insert data
> that violates it milliseconds after it stops being enforced. I think
> the expectation that the application is going to correctly enforce the
> constraint after it's told the database server not to enforce it, is
> going to be problematic. As I recall, we already do this in FDWs for
> instance and it's already a problem.
The database system could use the presence of a not enforced constraint
for selectivity estimation, for example.
