Thread: aggregate functions on massive number of rows

I have an aggregate function setup (attached) that I'm calling over a
massive amount of data and am running into:

    ERROR:  cannot have more than 2^32-1 commands in a transaction
    CONTEXT:  PL/pgSQL function "float8_jitter_add" line 16 at if

error.  Since I'm able to do count() and avg() over the same values
without this aggregate function, it's theoretically possible.

Something was making me think that it was the extract() that was doing
it (I used to have 'select extract(milliseconds from v_rtt_in) into
v_rtt' and something leaded me to believe the error was with that), but
I don't recall what that is, so it looks like it's just the if like it
says.

Since I'm not really doing anything transaction-oriented in
float8_jitter_add, is there a way to get around this?  Or is this a
limitation in pl/pgsql?

thanks in advance,
-Todd

---<snip>---
create or replace function float8_jitter_add(float8[], interval)
        returns float8[] as '
declare
        v_old_state ALIAS FOR $1;
        v_rtt_in ALIAS FOR $2;
        v_state float8[];
        v_rtt float8;
BEGIN
        v_state := v_old_state;
        v_rtt := extract(milliseconds from v_rtt_in);

        IF v_old_state is NULL THEN
                v_state := ''{0,0,0,0}'';
                v_state[1] = 0;
                v_state[2] = 0;
                v_state[3] = v_rtt;
                v_state[4] = 1;
        ELSIF v_rtt IS NOT NULL THEN
                if v_old_state[4] = 1 THEN
                        v_state[1] := v_old_state[2] + (v_old_state[3] - v_rtt);
                        v_state[2] := v_old_state[2] + 1;
                END IF;
                v_state[3] := v_rtt;
                v_state[4] := 1;
        ELSE
                v_state[4] := 0;
        END IF;
        return v_state;
END;
' language 'plpgsql';

create or replace function float8_jitter_sum(float8[])
        returns float8 as '
declare
        v_state ALIAS FOR $1;
        v_avg float8;
BEGIN
        v_avg := NULL;
        if v_state[1] != 0 THEN
                v_avg := v_state[1] / v_state[2];
        END IF;
        return v_avg;
END;
' language 'plpgsql';

create aggregate jitter (
        basetype = interval,
        sfunc = float8_jitter_add,
        stype = float8[],
        finalfunc = float8_jitter_sum
);

On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 12:23:45PM -0500, Todd Kover wrote:
>
> I have an aggregate function setup (attached) that I'm calling over a
> massive amount of data and am running into:
>
>     ERROR:  cannot have more than 2^32-1 commands in a transaction
>     CONTEXT:  PL/pgSQL function "float8_jitter_add" line 16 at if
>
> error.  Since I'm able to do count() and avg() over the same values
> without this aggregate function, it's theoretically possible.
>
> Something was making me think that it was the extract() that was doing
> it (I used to have 'select extract(milliseconds from v_rtt_in) into
> v_rtt' and something leaded me to believe the error was with that), but
> I don't recall what that is, so it looks like it's just the if like it
> says.

Note the following from the PL/pgSQL "Expressions" documentation:

  All expressions used in PL/pgSQL  statements are processed using
  the server's regular SQL executor. In effect, a query like

    SELECT expression

  is executed using the SPI manager.

I'd guess that you are indeed hitting the command limit.  You might
have more luck with one of the other procedural languages (PL/Perl,
PL/Tcl, PL/Python, etc.), but I'd consider coding something like
this in C if I were using it with so much data.

--
Michael Fuhr
http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/