I'm trying to optimize postgres performance on a headless solid state
hardware platform (no fans or disks). I have the database stored on a
USB 2.0 flash drive (hdparm benchmarks reads at 10 MB/s). Performance is
limited by the 533Mhz CPU.

Hardware:
IXP425 XScale (big endian) 533Mhz 64MB RAM
USB 2.0 Flash Drive
 
Software:
Linux 2.6.21.4
postgres 8.2.5

I created a fresh database using initdb, then added one table.

Here is the create table:
CREATE TABLE archivetbl
(
  "DateTime" timestamp without time zone,
  "StationNum" smallint,
  "DeviceDateTime" timestamp without time zone,
  "DeviceNum" smallint,
  "Tagname" character(64),
  "Value" double precision,
  "Online" boolean
)
WITH (OIDS=FALSE);
ALTER TABLE archivetbl OWNER TO novatech;

I populated the table with 38098 rows.

I'm doing this simple query:
select * from archivetbl;
 
It takes 79 seconds to complete the query (when postgres is compiled
with -O2). I'm running the query from pgadmin3 over TCP/IP.

oprofile is showing that memset (via dopr) is using about 60% of the CPU. I 
traced back further and noticed most of the usage was coming from 
EncodeDateTime.

I'm not quite sure why oprofile is showing that memset is hogging so much CPU. 
Regardless, I found way to eliminate most of the sprintf calls that were taking 
place in my situation.

I made some modifications to EncodeDateTime and have attached them as a patch. 
These changes alone reduced the query time of the "select *  from archivetbl;" 
from 79 seconds to just 35 seconds.

This patch is against 8.2.5. Since I'm cross compiling changing versions is a 
bit of a pain, but if someone thinks the performance has changed much in this 
area I could probably get the latest version cross compiling.

Regards,
George McCollister


diff -Naur postgresql-8.2.5/src/backend/utils/adt/datetime.c postgresql-8.2.5.new/src/backend/utils/adt/datetime.c
--- postgresql-8.2.5/src/backend/utils/adt/datetime.c	2007-06-12 10:58:39.000000000 -0500
+++ postgresql-8.2.5.new/src/backend/utils/adt/datetime.c	2008-09-15 12:16:32.000000000 -0500
@@ -3287,6 +3287,53 @@
 	return TRUE;
 }	/* EncodeTimeOnly() */
 
+void ymdhm(char * buf, int year, int mon, int day, int hour, int min)
+{
+	buf[0] = (char)((year / 1000) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[1] = (char)((year / 100) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[2] = (char)((year / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[3] = (char)(year % 10) + '0';
+	buf[4] = '-';
+	buf[5] = (char)((mon / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[6] = (char)(mon % 10) + '0';
+	buf[7] = '-';
+	buf[8] = (char)((day / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[9] = (char)(day % 10) + '0';
+	buf[10] = ' ';
+	buf[11] = (char)((hour / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[12] = (char)(hour % 10) + '0';
+	buf[13] = ':';
+	buf[14] = (char)((min / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[15] = (char)(min % 10) + '0';
+	buf[16] = '\0';
+}
+
+void append_seconds(char * buf, int sec)
+{
+	buf[0] = ':';
+	buf[1] = (char)((sec / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[2] = (char)(sec % 10) + '0';
+	buf[3] = '\0';
+}
+
+#ifdef HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP
+void append_seconds_and_fsecs(char * buf, int sec, fsec_t fsec)
+{
+	buf[0] = ':';
+	buf[1] = (char)((sec / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[2] = (char)(sec % 10) + '0';
+	buf[3] = '.';
+	buf[4] = (char)((fsec / 100000) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[5] = (char)((fsec / 10000) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[6] = (char)((fsec / 1000) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[7] = (char)((fsec / 100) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[8] = (char)((fsec / 10) % 10) + '0';
+	buf[9] = (char)(fsec % 10) + '0';
+	buf[10] = '\0';
+}
+#endif
+
+
 
 /* EncodeDateTime()
  * Encode date and time interpreted as local time.
@@ -3315,9 +3362,8 @@
 		case USE_ISO_DATES:
 			/* Compatible with ISO-8601 date formats */
 
-			sprintf(str, "%04d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d",
-					(tm->tm_year > 0) ? tm->tm_year : -(tm->tm_year - 1),
-					tm->tm_mon, tm->tm_mday, tm->tm_hour, tm->tm_min);
+			ymdhm(str, (tm->tm_year > 0) ? tm->tm_year : -(tm->tm_year - 1),
+				tm->tm_mon, tm->tm_mday, tm->tm_hour, tm->tm_min);
 
 			/*
 			 * Print fractional seconds if any.  The field widths here should
@@ -3329,7 +3375,7 @@
 #ifdef HAVE_INT64_TIMESTAMP
 			if (fsec != 0)
 			{
-				sprintf(str + strlen(str), ":%02d.%06d", tm->tm_sec, fsec);
+				append_seconds_and_fsecs(str + strlen(str), tm->tm_sec, fsec);
 				TrimTrailingZeros(str);
 			}
 #else
@@ -3340,7 +3386,7 @@
 			}
 #endif
 			else
-				sprintf(str + strlen(str), ":%02d", tm->tm_sec);
+				append_seconds(str + strlen(str), tm->tm_sec);
 
 			/*
 			 * tzp == NULL indicates that we don't want *any* time zone info
-- 
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