OK, so i was going through the autovacuum code and i noticed that when we construct the table list to vacuum in a database per run, we don't process them in a particular order. I mean since we pick the list up from pg_class so it may be ordered on oid? but when we select a database we have a priority algo, which select the db's in XID wraparound danger first, and that too the in an order that the db nearest to the XID wraparound is picked first
So wouldn't it make sense to pick up the tables in a similar order as well? like sorting the list on (deadtuples - calculated threshold) this way we will be vacuuming the tables in more need first. Without an order i can imagine a scenario where a table which is near a wrap-around or has more dead-rows waiting or possible having the XID warparound while another big table takes a lot of time. With the launcher - worker architecture in 8.3 the situation will improve as you can have multiple workers vacuuming multiple tables in parallel, but having some order there would also help , i would think. Thanks, -- Usama Munir Dar http://www.linkedin.com/in/usamadar Consultant Architect Cell:+92 321 5020666 Skype: usamadar