[HACKERS] Request improve pg_stat_statements module
I patched to add one column in pg_stat_statements module.
and sent to author but
I recived a reject mail because unknown user :(
so I am posting to this mailling.
I need a last time of query, because I want to analyse order by recent time.
this patch code below,
review please and
I wish to apply at next version.
--- diff begin
--- ../pg_stat_statements.orig/pg_stat_statements.c 2014-02-18
04:29:55.0 +0900
+++ pg_stat_statements.c2014-02-28 15:34:38.0 +0900
@@ -59,6 +59,7 @@
#include "storage/spin.h"
#include "tcop/utility.h"
#include "utils/builtins.h"
+#include "utils/timestamp.h"
PG_MODULE_MAGIC;
@@ -116,6 +117,7 @@
double blk_read_time; /* time spent reading, in msec */
double blk_write_time; /* time spent writing, in msec */
double usage; /* usage factor */
+ TimestampTz last_executed_timestamp; /* last executed
timestamp of query */
} Counters;
/*
@@ -1043,6 +1045,8 @@
e->counters.blk_read_time +=
INSTR_TIME_GET_MILLISEC(bufusage->blk_read_time);
e->counters.blk_write_time +=
INSTR_TIME_GET_MILLISEC(bufusage->blk_write_time);
e->counters.usage += USAGE_EXEC(total_time);
+ /* last executed timestamp */
+ e->counters.last_executed_timestamp = GetCurrentTimestamp();
SpinLockRelease(&e->mutex);
}
@@ -1069,7 +1073,8 @@
}
#define PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS_V1_0 14
-#define PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS18
+#define PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS_V1_1 18
+#define PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS19
/*
* Retrieve statement statistics.
@@ -1087,6 +1092,7 @@
HASH_SEQ_STATUS hash_seq;
pgssEntry *entry;
boolsql_supports_v1_1_counters = true;
+ boolsql_supports_v1_2_counters = true;
if (!pgss || !pgss_hash)
ereport(ERROR,
@@ -1107,8 +1113,12 @@
/* Build a tuple descriptor for our result type */
if (get_call_result_type(fcinfo, NULL, &tupdesc) != TYPEFUNC_COMPOSITE)
elog(ERROR, "return type must be a row type");
- if (tupdesc->natts == PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS_V1_0)
+ if (tupdesc->natts == PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS_V1_0){
sql_supports_v1_1_counters = false;
+ sql_supports_v1_2_counters = false;
+ }
+ if (tupdesc->natts == PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS_V1_1)
+ sql_supports_v1_2_counters = false;
per_query_ctx = rsinfo->econtext->ecxt_per_query_memory;
oldcontext = MemoryContextSwitchTo(per_query_ctx);
@@ -1185,8 +1195,15 @@
values[i++] = Float8GetDatumFast(tmp.blk_read_time);
values[i++] = Float8GetDatumFast(tmp.blk_write_time);
}
+ // last_executed_timestamp
+ if (sql_supports_v1_2_counters)
+ values[i++] =
TimestampTzGetDatum(tmp.last_executed_timestamp);
+
- Assert(i == (sql_supports_v1_1_counters ?
+ if(sql_supports_v1_2_counters)
+ Assert(i == PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS);
+ else
+ Assert(i == (sql_supports_v1_1_counters ?
PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS :
PG_STAT_STATEMENTS_COLS_V1_0));
tuplestore_putvalues(tupstore, tupdesc, values, nulls);
-- end of diff
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Re: [HACKERS] xpath not a good replacement for xpath_string
>> >> select datum form objects were key ='GUID' and >> xpath_string(datum,E'foo/bar') = 'frobozz'; >> >> The logic of the function seems is that it is intended to use extracted >> XML within a query. The new xpath functionality seems not to be designed >> to facilitate this, requiring a pretty arcane query structure to do the >> same thing: >> >> select datum from objects where key='GUID' and (xpath(E'foo/bar', >> XMLPARSE(CONTENT datum))::text())[1] = 'frobozz'; >> >> > > It's not that arcane. Mike Rylander and I came up with the same answer > independently within a very short time of you posting your query. I > guess it depends how used you are to using XPath. That is sort of the point I was making. It just seems arcane, by the very definition of arcane, within a SQL context. It is workable and it can be used, but I don't think the change was designed to make writing queries easier. It was designed to be more about "XPath" than SQL. > > It's also probably not terribly hard to produce a wrapper to do what > you'd like. No, it isn't but you haven't made the usage of XPath any easier in the more general case. > > I have no problem with adding some convenience functions. I do have a > problem with functions where we try to make things easy and instead muck > them up. We just ripped out a "convenience" from our xpath processing > that was totally braindead, so this isn't an idle concern. > > I would argue that "xpath_string" is a fairly horrible name for what the > xml2 module provides. Specifically, my objection is that an xpath query > returns a nodeset, and what this function returns is not the string > value of the nodeset, but the string value of the *contents* of those > nodes, which is not the same thing at all. To that extent the xml2 > module documentation is at best imprecise and at worst plain wrong. Well, the API is there, it is where, I guess, PostgreSQL is going, but I think, philosophically, the API needs to see the XML contained within SQL columns as being able to represent variable and optional columns in object oriented environments easily. The harder it is to use a feature, the less usable the feature is. Do you disagree? > > cheers > > andrew > > -- > Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers > -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] xpath not a good replacement for xpath_string
> On Tuesday 28 July 2009 23:30:23 pg...@mohawksoft.com wrote: >> The thing that perplexed me was that it was not obvious from the docs >> how, >> exactly, to get the functionality that was simple and straight forward >> in >> XML2. > > I continue to be in favor of adding > > xpath_string > xpath_number > xpath_boolean > > functions, which would be both easier to use and provide a more > casting-free > approach to pass the data around. In the past there were some doubts and > objections about that, but I think it could be done. > I totally agree, but I tend to be more of a pragmatist than a purist. It seems to me that purists tend to like a lot of topical consistency in an API, like the new implementation of xpath over the former. Where as a pragmatists will violate some of the rules to make something seemingly more easy. The issue I have with the xpath implementation is that it seems more geared to an XML implementation on top of SQL instead of an XML implementation embedded within SQL. For instance, I use an XML column in a database for "metadata" about customers and other objects. So, we have a base table of "objects" and the specifics of each object is contained within XML. So, the former API was perfect for this use: select datum form objects were key ='GUID' and xpath_string(datum,E'foo/bar') = 'frobozz'; The logic of the function seems is that it is intended to use extracted XML within a query. The new xpath functionality seems not to be designed to facilitate this, requiring a pretty arcane query structure to do the same thing: select datum from objects where key='GUID' and (xpath(E'foo/bar', XMLPARSE(CONTENT datum))::text())[1] = 'frobozz'; -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] xpath not a good replacement for xpath_string
> Andrew Dunstan wrote: > >> in fact the desired functionality is present [...] You just need to >> use the text() function to get the contents of the node, and an >> array subscript to pull it out of the result array. > > I just took a quick look, and that didn't jump out at me from the > documentation. Perhaps there should be an example or two of how to > get the equivalent functionality through the newer standard API, for > those looking to migrate? > > Would it make sense to supply convenience SQL functions which map > some of the old API to the new? The thing that perplexed me was that it was not obvious from the docs how, exactly, to get the functionality that was simple and straight forward in XML2. Another thing that is troubling is that more exotic types do not seem to be supported at all. For instance, in my example I used uuid, and if one substitutes "uuid()" for "text()" that doesn't work. The API is less intuitive than the previous incarnation and is, indeed, more difficult to use. > > -Kevin > > -- > Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers > -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
[HACKERS] xpath not a good replacement for xpath_string
Sorry to bring this up, I know you've been fighting about XML for a while.
Currently, I am using XML2 functionality and have tried to get the newer
XPath function to work similarly, but can't quite seem to do it.
I think the current xpath function is too limited. (The docs said to post
problems to hackers if I have an issue.)
For instance, we have a web application that uses java with an XML class
serializer/deserializer Xstream. It creates XML that looks like this:
b5212259-a91f-4dca-a547-4fe89cf2f32c
j...@somedomain.com
My current strategy is to use xml2 as:
select xpath_string(datum, E'/com\.company\.local\.myclass/uuid) as uuid
from table;
Which produces a usable:
b5212259-a91f-4dca-a547-4fe89cf2f32c
I have been trying to use xpath
select xpath(E'/com\.company\.local\.myclass/uuid', XMLPARSE(CONTENT
datum)) as uuid from table;
Which produces an unusable:
{b5212259-a91f-4dca-a547-4fe89cf2f32c}
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[HACKERS] WAL archive, warm backup and read-only slave
How difficult would it be, and does anyone think it is possible to have a continuous "restore_command" ala pg_standby running AND have the database operational in a "read-only" mode? -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Block-level CRC checks
> Aidan Van Dyk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> One possibility would be to "double-buffer" the write... i.e. as you >> calculate your CRC, you're doing it on a local copy of the block, which >> you hand to the OS to write... If you're touching the whole block of >> memory to CRC it, it isn't *ridiculously* more expensive to copy the >> memory somewhere else as you do it... > > That actually seems like a really good idea. We don't have to increase > the buffer locking requirements, or make much of any change at all in > the existing logic. +1, especially if this is intended to be an > optional feature (which I agree with). > I don't think it make sense at all!!! If you are going to double buffer, one presumes that for some non-zero period of time, the block must be locked during which it is copied. You wouldn't want it changing "mid-copy" would you? How is this any less of a hit than just calculating the checksum? -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Block-level CRC checks
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >>> No, it's all about time penalties and loss of concurrency. > >> I don't think that the amount of time it would take to calculate and >> test >> the sum is even important. It may be in older CPUs, but these days CPUs >> are so fast in RAM and a block is very small. On x86 systems, depending >> on >> page alignment, we are talking about two or three pages that will be "in >> memory" (They were used to read the block from disk or previously >> accessed). > > Your optimism is showing ;-). XLogInsert routinely shows up as a major > CPU hog in any update-intensive test, and AFAICT that's mostly from the > CRC calculation for WAL records. > > We could possibly use something cheaper than a real CRC, though. A > word-wide XOR (ie, effectively a parity calculation) would be sufficient > to detect most problems. That was something that I mentioned in my first response. if the *only* purpose of the check is to generate a "pass" or "fail" status, and not something to be used to find where in the block it is corrupted or attempt to regenerate the data, then we could certainly optimize the check algorithm. A simple checksum may be good enough. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Block-level CRC checks
> Hannu Krosing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> So I don't think that this is a space issue. > > No, it's all about time penalties and loss of concurrency. I don't think that the amount of time it would take to calculate and test the sum is even important. It may be in older CPUs, but these days CPUs are so fast in RAM and a block is very small. On x86 systems, depending on page alignment, we are talking about two or three pages that will be "in memory" (They were used to read the block from disk or previously accessed). -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Block-level CRC checks
> On Tue, 2008-09-30 at 17:13 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> > >> > I believe the idea was to make this as non-invasive as possible. And >> > it would be really nice if this could be enabled without a dump/ >> > reload (maybe the upgrade stuff would make this possible?) >> > -- >> >> It's all about the probability of a duplicate check being generated. If >> you use a 32 bit checksum, then you have a theoretical probability of 1 >> in >> 4 billion that a corrupt block will be missed (probably much lower >> depending on your algorithm). If you use a short, then a 1 in 65 >> thousand >> probability. If you use an 8 bit number, then 1 in 256. >> >> Why am I going on? Well, if there are any spare bits in a block header, >> they could be used for the check value. > > Even and 64-bit integer is just 0.1% of 8k page size, and it is even > less than 0.1% likely that page will be 100% full and thus that 64bits > wastes any real space at all. > > So I don't think that this is a space issue. > Oh, I don't think it is a space issue either, the question was could there be a way to do it without a dump and restore. The only way that occurs to me is if there are some unused bits in the block header. I haven't looked at that code in years. The numerics of it are just a description of the probability of a duplicate sum or crc, meaning a false OK. Also, regardless of whether or not the block is full, the block is read and written as a block and that the underlying data unimportant. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Block-level CRC checks
> > I believe the idea was to make this as non-invasive as possible. And > it would be really nice if this could be enabled without a dump/ > reload (maybe the upgrade stuff would make this possible?) > -- It's all about the probability of a duplicate check being generated. If you use a 32 bit checksum, then you have a theoretical probability of 1 in 4 billion that a corrupt block will be missed (probably much lower depending on your algorithm). If you use a short, then a 1 in 65 thousand probability. If you use an 8 bit number, then 1 in 256. Why am I going on? Well, if there are any spare bits in a block header, they could be used for the check value. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Block-level CRC checks
> A customer of ours has been having trouble with corrupted data for some > time. Of course, we've almost always blamed hardware (and we've seen > RAID controllers have their firmware upgraded, among other actions), but > the useful thing to know is when corruption has happened, and where. That is an important statement, to know when it happens not necessarily to be able to recover the block or where in the block it is corrupt. Is that correct? > > So we've been tasked with adding CRCs to data files. CRC or checksum? If the objective is merely general "detection" there should be some latitude in choosing the methodology for performance. > > The idea is that these CRCs are going to be checked just after reading > files from disk, and calculated just before writing it. They are > just a protection against the storage layer going mad; they are not > intended to protect against faulty RAM, CPU or kernel. It will actually find faults in all if it. If the CPU can't add and/or a RAM location lost a bit, this will blow up just as easily as a bad block. It may cause "false identification" of an error, but it will keep a bad system from hiding. > > This code would be run-time or compile-time configurable. I'm not > absolutely sure which yet; the problem with run-time is what to do if > the user restarts the server with the setting flipped. It would have > almost no impact on users who don't enable it. CPU capacity on modern hardware within a small area of RAM is practically infinite when compared to any sort of I/O. > > The implementation I'm envisioning requires the use of a new relation > fork to store the per-block CRCs. Initially I'm aiming at a CRC32 sum > for each block. FlushBuffer would calculate the checksum and store it > in the CRC fork; ReadBuffer_common would read the page, calculate the > checksum, and compare it to the one stored in the CRC fork. Hell, all that is needed is a long or a short checksum value in the block. I mean, if you just want a sanity test, it doesn't take much. Using a second relation creates confusion. If there is a CRC discrepancy between two different blocks, who's wrong? You need a third "control" to know. If the block knows its CRC or checksum and that is in error, the block is bad. > > A buffer's io_in_progress lock protects the buffer's CRC. We read and > pin the CRC page before acquiring the lock, to avoid having two buffer > IO operations in flight. > > I'd like to submit this for 8.4, but I want to ensure that -hackers at > large approve of this feature before starting serious coding. > > Opinions? If its fast enough, its a good idea. It could be very helpful in protecting users data. > > -- > Alvaro Herrera > http://www.CommandPrompt.com/ > PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support > > -- > Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers > -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Ad-hoc table type?
> What you're talking about is a document based database like
> StrokeDB, CouchDB. With hstore you don't need to parse content of
> 'aggregate' column, it provides necessary methods. Also, we tried
> to speedup selects using indexes. Probably, we need to refresh our
> interest to hstore, do you have any actual proposals ?
Proposals, not at this point. I'm trying to decide (a) if I have the time
and (b) do I do it with Postgres or SQLite. The hstore module, as I said,
looks really cool, I've contemplated something like it. I have a module
provides a set of accessors for an XML text column that works similarly,
but it parses the XML on each access and the application has to create the
XML. (I have XML creation modules for Java, PHP, C++, and standard C
bindings.)
It is more a conflict of data ideology, IMHO. There is a class of data
that is logically on the same level as other data, but is forced into a
secondary storage methodology. It isn't a pressing need as there are work
arounds, but don't you think a cleaner interface make sense? Also, what is
the overhead for the secondary storage mechanism? I think it would make
the life of application developers easier.
>
> Oleg
>
> On Sun, 28 Sep 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>>>> Something like this:
>>>
>>>> create adhoc table foo ();
>>>
>>>> insert into foo (name, rank, serial) values ('joe', 'sargent', '42');
>>>
>>>> In an "ad-hoc" table type, when an insert is made, and a column is not
>>>> found, then a new varchar column is added.
>>>
>>>> I know the idea has a lot of holes, and is probably a bad idea, but it
>>>> answers an important problem of easily mapping programmatic types to a
>>>> database.
>>>
>>> Seems like a table with one contrib/hstore column might be more
>>> relevant
>>> to this guy's idea of how to do database design.
>>>
>>
>> That's actually a very cool module, I hadn't seen it before. I've
>> considered writing something like it, but more XML centric, but I'm not
>> sure it answers the concept.
>>
>> I'm not sure if you have dealt with web site sessions and object
>> persistence crap, but its a pain to get up and running and improving
>> performance is a drag. Web guys tend to know very little about databases
>> and tend, sadly, not to be very inquisitive about such things.
>>
>> Web session and user attribute objects are typically stored in a
>> database
>> as XML, JSON, or some other aggregated format in a single column
>> (hstore).
>> That works great for when you just need to access the data by the key,
>> but
>> if you want to "use" the data outside the web application for something
>> like OLAP, you have to decide which attributes reside in the aggregate
>> column or get promoted to a full fledged column. That's why you'll see
>> tables with username, passwdhash, email, etc. in addition to an
>> aggregated
>> column of things like screen template, age, etc.
>>
>> So, how do you have a table of a generally arbitrary number of columns
>> without creating some sort of aggregate column? With an aggregate
>> column,
>> the data isn't on the same level as real column data, so you need to
>> parse
>> the aggregate to extract a value, and you have to do that for each
>> value.
>> On top of that, you then have to explain your aggregate strategy to the
>> web guys.
>>
>> Being able to insert arbitrary named values, and extracting them
>> similarly, IMHO works "better" and more naturally than some external
>> aggregate system built on a column. I know it is a little "outside the
>> box" thinking, what do you think?
>>
>>
>
> Regards,
> Oleg
> _____
> Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
> Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
> Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
> phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83
>
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> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
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Re: [HACKERS] Ad-hoc table type?
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> Being able to insert arbitrary named values, and extracting them
>> similarly, IMHO works "better" and more naturally than some external
>> aggregate system built on a column. I know it is a little "outside the
>> box" thinking, what do you think?
>
> I'm failing to see the point. Allowing columns to spring into existence
> without any forethought seems to me to be all minuses and no pluses
> worth mentioning.
>
> * What if the column name is just a typo?
In an automated system like PHP, Java, etc. that's not too likely.
>
> * What datatype should it have? ("Always varchar" is just lame.)
varchar or text is not "just lame," SQLite used to do that exclusively.
One could argue that XML is nothing more than text.
>
> * Should it have an index? If so, should it be unique?
The answer to that is, well, no, not unless the dba generates one or it is
declared. Just like any other column. All the rules that apply to "create
table" and "alter table add column" just apply naturally as would be
expected.
create adhoc table userdata(username varchar, email varchar, primary
key(email));
>
> * If you keep doing this, you'll soon find yourself reading out
> unbelievably wide tables (lots of columns), which won't be especially
> easy or efficient to process on either the backend or the client side.
> Plus you might run into the max-columns-per-tuple limit.
Well, I fully understand that it is not a general purpose "unlimited"
width sort of thing. In a programing environment, the target environment
for this type of feature, it is unlikely to be a run-away problem.
>
> If you've expended enough thought to be sure that the column is not just
> a typo, ISTM that you can afford to enter an ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN
> command to tell the database the results of your genius.
Like I said, if you've never dealt with a live web site, maintained by a
team of "web dudes," working furiously to keep their job and get paid,
your only hope to keep up with "Oh! I needed to add the 'time to live' of
the session into the session data" is to use an aggregate storage system.
>
> I do see the point that switching from "member of an hstore column" to
> "real database column" is pretty painful, but I don't see that "allow
> columns to spring into existence" solves that in any meaningful way.
> Is there some other way we could address such conversions?
Every other solution creates a second tier of data storage. You either
deal with data elements at the table level, or you create a "roll your
own" aggregate mechanism, or make a HUGE table of "user,name,value" table
and force a join and index scan for every select. (A million users, 5-10
attributes each is an expensive join.)
>
> BTW, I think it is (or should be) possible to create an index on
> hstore->'mycol', so at least one of the reasons why you should *need*
> to switch to a "real" database column seems bogus.
Oh, yea, function indexes work great. I think you did that right?
For what its worth, I don't expect you to jump all over this. It really is
a divergence from classic SQL design. I'm not even sure I like it. In
fact, I don't like it, but the argument that you are being forced to
create a second class data storage mechanism or a relational join for data
that is logically in a single relation does cause one to ponder the
problem.
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Re: [HACKERS] Ad-hoc table type?
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>> Something like this:
>
>> create adhoc table foo ();
>
>> insert into foo (name, rank, serial) values ('joe', 'sargent', '42');
>
>> In an "ad-hoc" table type, when an insert is made, and a column is not
>> found, then a new varchar column is added.
>
>> I know the idea has a lot of holes, and is probably a bad idea, but it
>> answers an important problem of easily mapping programmatic types to a
>> database.
>
> Seems like a table with one contrib/hstore column might be more relevant
> to this guy's idea of how to do database design.
>
That's actually a very cool module, I hadn't seen it before. I've
considered writing something like it, but more XML centric, but I'm not
sure it answers the concept.
I'm not sure if you have dealt with web site sessions and object
persistence crap, but its a pain to get up and running and improving
performance is a drag. Web guys tend to know very little about databases
and tend, sadly, not to be very inquisitive about such things.
Web session and user attribute objects are typically stored in a database
as XML, JSON, or some other aggregated format in a single column (hstore).
That works great for when you just need to access the data by the key, but
if you want to "use" the data outside the web application for something
like OLAP, you have to decide which attributes reside in the aggregate
column or get promoted to a full fledged column. That's why you'll see
tables with username, passwdhash, email, etc. in addition to an aggregated
column of things like screen template, age, etc.
So, how do you have a table of a generally arbitrary number of columns
without creating some sort of aggregate column? With an aggregate column,
the data isn't on the same level as real column data, so you need to parse
the aggregate to extract a value, and you have to do that for each value.
On top of that, you then have to explain your aggregate strategy to the
web guys.
Being able to insert arbitrary named values, and extracting them
similarly, IMHO works "better" and more naturally than some external
aggregate system built on a column. I know it is a little "outside the
box" thinking, what do you think?
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[HACKERS] Ad-hoc table type?
I was in a discussion with someone about the difference between ad-hoc
storage systems and SQL. Yes, I know, I was rolling my eyes as well. One
thing did strike me though was the idea that a table could contain a
variable number of columns.
Something like this:
create adhoc table foo ();
insert into foo (name, rank, serial) values ('joe', 'sargent', '42');
In an "ad-hoc" table type, when an insert is made, and a column is not
found, then a new varchar column is added.
I know the idea has a lot of holes, and is probably a bad idea, but it
answers an important problem of easily mapping programmatic types to a
database.
Anyone think its interesting?
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Re: [HACKERS] Function call order dependency
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> I need to perform an operation during query time and there are multiple >> results based on the outcome. For instance: (Lets try this) > >> select myrank(t1.column1, t2.column2, 1) as rank, >> myscore(t1.column1,t2.column2, 1) as score from t1, t2 where >> myrank(t1.column1,t2.column2) > 10 order by myscore(t1.column1, >> t2.column2, 1) desc; > > Why not have one function that produces multiple output columns? I was sort of trying to make this a fairly "generic" SQL extension who's methodology could be moved to other databases if needed. I guess multiple columns could work. I've got some code in another extension that does that. > >> Now, can I assume that in the above select statement, that each >> permutation of t1.column1 and t2.column2 will only be evaluated once and >> that myscore(...) and myrank(...) will all be called before the next >> permutation is evaluated? > > You can assume that functions in the SELECT target list are evaluated > exactly once per output row (at least as long as no > SRFs-in-the-targetlist are involved). I don't think it'd be wise to > assume anything about order of evaluation, though it's probably true > that it's left-to-right at the moment. But are all the items targeted in close proximity to each other BEFORE moving on to the next row? What about the "where" clause? would that be called out of order of the select target list? I'm doing a fairly large amount of processing and doing it once is important. / -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Function call order dependency
>> I was kind of afraid of that. So, how could one implement such a >> function >> set? > > Write a function (say, score_contains) that returns NULL whenever > contains would return false, and the score otherwise. > > SELECT * FROM ( > SELECT *, score_contains(mytable.title, 'Winding Road', 1) AS > score FROM mytable > ) x WHERE x.score IS NOT NULL > ORDER BY x.score That could work, and while it fits my example, my actual need is a bit more complex. For instance, say I have two variables (I actually have a few that I need) select myvar1(1), myvar2(1), myvar3(1) from mytable where myfunction(mytable.column, 'some text to search for', 1) > 2; How could I ensure that (1) "myfunction" is called prior to myvar1(), myvar2(), and myvar3()? I think the answer is that I can't. So, the obvious solution is to pass all the variables to all the functions and have it first come first served. The next issue is something like this: select *, myvar1(t1.col1,t2.col2,1), myvar2(t1.col1.t2.col2,1) from t1,t2 where myfunction(t1.col1,t2.col2,1) > 10 order by myvar3(t1.col1,t2.col2,1) desc; Using a "first come first served" strategy, is there any discontinuity between the function calls for t1.col1 and t2.col2. Will they all be called for a particular combination of t1.col1 and t2.col2, in some unpredictable order before the next row(s) combination is evaluated or will I have to execute the underlying algorithm for each and every call? > > ...Robert > -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Function call order dependency
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> For example I'll use the Oracle "contains" function, though this is not >> exactly what I'm doing, it just illustrates the issue clearly. > >> select *, score(1) from mytable where contains(mytable.title, 'Winding >> Road', 1) order by score(1); > >> The "contains" function does a match against mytable.title for the term >> 'Winding Road' and both returns and saves an integer score which may be >> retrieved later using the "score(...)" function. > > This is just a bad, bad idea. Side-effects in a WHERE-clause function > are guaranteed to cause headaches. When (not if) it breaks, you get > to keep both pieces. Well, I guess I need to alter the question a bit. I need to perform an operation during query time and there are multiple results based on the outcome. For instance: (Lets try this) select myrank(t1.column1, t2.column2, 1) as rank, myscore(t1.column1,t2.column2, 1) as score from t1, t2 where myrank(t1.column1,t2.column2) > 10 order by myscore(t1.column1, t2.column2, 1) desc; This is a bit messier, and I wanted to resist this approach as it is ugly. The underlying code will check the values of the first and second parameters and only perform the operation if a previous call did not already act on the current parameters. Now, can I assume that in the above select statement, that each permutation of t1.column1 and t2.column2 will only be evaluated once and that myscore(...) and myrank(...) will all be called before the next permutation is evaluated? So, basically, I don't want to recalculate the values for each and every function call as that would make the system VERY slow. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] Function call order dependency
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> For example I'll use the Oracle "contains" function, though this is not >> exactly what I'm doing, it just illustrates the issue clearly. > >> select *, score(1) from mytable where contains(mytable.title, 'Winding >> Road', 1) order by score(1); > >> The "contains" function does a match against mytable.title for the term >> 'Winding Road' and both returns and saves an integer score which may be >> retrieved later using the "score(...)" function. > > This is just a bad, bad idea. Side-effects in a WHERE-clause function > are guaranteed to cause headaches. When (not if) it breaks, you get > to keep both pieces. I was kind of afraid of that. So, how could one implement such a function set? -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
[HACKERS] Function call order dependency
Is there a knowable order in which functions are called within a query in PostgreSQL? For example I'll use the Oracle "contains" function, though this is not exactly what I'm doing, it just illustrates the issue clearly. select *, score(1) from mytable where contains(mytable.title, 'Winding Road', 1) order by score(1); The "contains" function does a match against mytable.title for the term 'Winding Road' and both returns and saves an integer score which may be retrieved later using the "score(...)" function. The integer used as a parameter in score(...) and contains(...) is an index to reference which score you need as more than one contains(...) call may be used in single query. This sets up an interesting issue, how can one ensure that "contains()" is called prior to any "score()" function on each row? Is this possible? Is there a specific order on which you can count? Would it be something like: "where" clause first, left to right, followed by select terms, left to right, and lastly the "order by" clause? -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
[HACKERS] SSL configure patch
Here is the SSL patch we discussed previously for 8.3.1. sslconfig.patch.8.3.1 Description: Binary data -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
[HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE patch
I have submitted a patch that does two things: (1) fixes a bug in the client SSL code that never appended the home directory to the root revocation list. and (2) adds 4 new fields to the connect string: sslkey=fullepath_to_file sslcert=fullpath_to_cert ssltrustcrt=fullpath_to_trusted_cert_file sslcrl=fullpath_to_revocation_list -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> >> Maybe we need to go even further and add it to the PQconnect API >> >> sslkey=filename and sslcrt=filename in addition to sslmode? >> > >> > If there's a case to be made for this at all, it should be handled >> > the same way as all other libpq connection parameters. >> > >> >regards, tom lane >> > >> >> Here's the use case: >> >> I have an application that must connect to multiple PostgreSQL >> databases and must use secure communications and the SSL keys are >> under the control of the business units the administer the databases, >> not me. In addition my application also communicates with other SSL >> enabled versions of itself. >> >> I think you would agree that a hard coded immutable location for >> "client" interface is problematic. > > I agree fully with the use-case. Most of the other things we allow both > as connection parameters and as environment variables, so we should do > that IMHO. What could be debated is if we should also somehow allow it > to be specified in .pgpass for example? > I am testing a patch that is currently against the 8.2 series. It implements in PQconnectdb(...) sslmode=require sslkey=client.key sslcert=client.crt ssltrustcrt=certs.pem sslcrl=crl.pem" BTW: the revocation list probably never worked in the client. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE round 2
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> Adding "sslkey" and "sslcert" to the PQconnectdb connection string.
>>
>> After some discussion, I think it is more appropriate to add the
>> key/cert
>> file for SSL into the connect string. For example:
>>
>> PQconnectdb("host=foo dbname=bar sslmode=require
>> sslkey=/opt/myapp/share/keys/client.key
>> sslcert=/opt/myapp/share/keys/client.crt");
>>
>>
>> Any comments?
>>
>>
>
> I think if you're going to provide for these then you should also
> provide for the CA cert and CRL.
>
> Otherwise, it seems sensible.
I thought about that, but the root and crl are for the server, and that
makes sense that the keys would be in the server directory. The server
needs to protect its data against clients wishing to connect. The client
on the other hand, needs to access one or more postgresql servers.
It makes sense that the server keys and credentials be hard coded to its
protected data directory, while the client needs the ability to have
multiple keys.
Think of it this way, a specific lock only takes one key while a person
needs to carry multiple keys on a ring.
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[HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE round 2
Adding "sslkey" and "sslcert" to the PQconnectdb connection string.
After some discussion, I think it is more appropriate to add the key/cert
file for SSL into the connect string. For example:
PQconnectdb("host=foo dbname=bar sslmode=require
sslkey=/opt/myapp/share/keys/client.key
sslcert=/opt/myapp/share/keys/client.crt");
Any comments?
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Re: [HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE
>
> On May 15, 2008, at 6:31 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>>> Mark Woodward wrote:
>>>> I am using PostgreSQL's SSL support and the conventions for the
>>>> key and
>>>> certifications don't make sense from the client perspective.
>>>> Especially
>>>> under Windows.
>>>>
>>>> I am proposing a few simple changes:
>>>>
>>>> Adding two API
>>>> void PQsetSSLUserCertFileName(char *filename)
>>>> {
>>>>user_crt_filename = strdup(filename);
>>>> }
>>>> PQsetSSLUserKeyFileName(char *filename)
>>>> {
>>>>user_key_filename = strdup(filename);
>>>> }
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>> Any comments?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think it would probably be much better to allow for some
>>> environment
>>> variables to specify the locations of the client certificate and key
>>> (and the CA cert and CRL) - c.f. PGPASSFILE.
>>>
>>> That way not only could these be set by C programs but by any libpq
>>> user
>>> (I'm sure driver writers who use libpq don't want to have to bother
>>> with
>>> this stuff.) And we wouldn't need to change the API at all.
>>>
>>
>> The problem I have with environment variables is that they tend not
>> to be
>> application specific and almost always lead to configuration issues.
>> As a
>> methodology for default configuration, it adds flexibility. Also, the
>> current configuration does not easily take in to consideration the
>> idea
>> that different databases with different keys can be used from the same
>> system the same user.
>
> Environment variables don't have to be set in your shell.
>
> This would seem to give the same functionality you suggest above,
> given support for environment variables:
>
> void PQsetSSLUserCertFileName(char * filename)
> {
>setenv("PGCERTFILE", filename);
> }
>
> void PQsetSSLUserKeyFileName(char *filename)
> {
>setenv("PGKEYFILE", filename);
> }
>
> Or, in perl, $ENV{PGKEYFILE} = $file and so on. It seems
> less intrusive than adding new API calls.
>
> Cheers,
>Steve
Doesn't it make sense that the connection be configured in one place? I
agree with Tom, if it should be done, it should be done in PQconnectdb.
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Re: [HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> Maybe we need to go even further and add it to the PQconnect API >> sslkey=filename and sslcrt=filename in addition to sslmode? > > If there's a case to be made for this at all, it should be handled the > same way as all other libpq connection parameters. > > regards, tom lane > Here's the use case: I have an application that must connect to multiple PostgreSQL databases and must use secure communications and the SSL keys are under the control of the business units the administer the databases, not me. In addition my application also communicates with other SSL enabled versions of itself. I think you would agree that a hard coded immutable location for "client" interface is problematic. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Re: [HACKERS] SSL and USER_CERT_FILE
> Mark Woodward wrote:
>> I am using PostgreSQL's SSL support and the conventions for the key and
>> certifications don't make sense from the client perspective. Especially
>> under Windows.
>>
>> I am proposing a few simple changes:
>>
>> Adding two API
>> void PQsetSSLUserCertFileName(char *filename)
>> {
>> user_crt_filename = strdup(filename);
>> }
>> PQsetSSLUserKeyFileName(char *filename)
>> {
>> user_key_filename = strdup(filename);
>> }
>>
>>
>>
> [snip]
>> Any comments?
>>
>>
>
>
> I think it would probably be much better to allow for some environment
> variables to specify the locations of the client certificate and key
> (and the CA cert and CRL) - c.f. PGPASSFILE.
>
> That way not only could these be set by C programs but by any libpq user
> (I'm sure driver writers who use libpq don't want to have to bother with
> this stuff.) And we wouldn't need to change the API at all.
>
The problem I have with environment variables is that they tend not to be
application specific and almost always lead to configuration issues. As a
methodology for default configuration, it adds flexibility. Also, the
current configuration does not easily take in to consideration the idea
that different databases with different keys can be used from the same
system the same user.
Maybe we need to go even further and add it to the PQconnect API
sslkey=filename and sslcrt=filename in addition to sslmode?
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unsubscribe ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] signed short fd
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> The point is that this *is* silly, but I am at a loss to understand why >> it >> isn't a no-brainer to change. Why is there a fight over a trivial change >> which will ensure that PostgreSQL aligns to the documented behavior of >> "open()" > > (Why characterise this as a "fight", rather than a discussion? Perhaps > it is because of the same combative, adversarial attitude you seem to > bring to every discussion you're involved in on -hackers...) I really don't intend to do that, and it does seem to happen a lot. I am the first to admit I lack tact, but often times I view the decisions made as rather arbitrary and lacking a larger perspective, but that is a rant I don't want to get right now. > > Anyway, I agree, there's no point keeping it a short; I highly doubt > this would actually be a problem, but we may as well change it to an int. And this is my point. There are things that are "no brainers," and a few times I have been completely dumbfounded as to the source of resistence. Silently truncating the upper 2 bytes of data type declared as an "int" is a bug. I can't believe anyone would defend it, but here it happens. Maybe it is me. I know I'm stubborn and confrontational, personally I've wished I could be different, but I'm 42 so I guess I'm not going to change any time soon. Regardless of the source, if you want code to be portable, you have to take APIs at face value. Any assumptions you think you can make are by definition wrong. Allow the API authors the space to handle what they need to handle. Assuming a specific behavior is dangerous. Is it currently a problem, most likely not, but since there is no downside, why leave it lurking to bite us? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] signed short fd
> My copy of APUE says on page 49: "The file descriptor returned by open > is the lowest numbered unused descriptor. This is used by some > applications to open a new file on standard input, standard output, or > standard error." Yes, I'll restate my questions: What is meant by "unused?" Is it read to mean that a higher number file is *never* returned if there is a lower number that has been used and is now available? Is that something we can 100% absolutely depend on. On All curent and future platforms? It is a stupid idea to truncate the upper bytes of an integer without good reason. I can see LOTS of reasons why this will break something in the future. The upper bits may be used to identify storage media or characteristics. My point is that the spec calls for an "int," PostgreSQL should use an int. > > Unless someone can show there's an actual problem this discussion seems > quite pointless. > The point is that this *is* silly, but I am at a loss to understand why it isn't a no-brainer to change. Why is there a fight over a trivial change which will ensure that PostgreSQL aligns to the documented behavior of "open()" ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] signed short fd
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> That is hardly anything that I would feel comfortable with. Lets break >> this down into all the areas that are ambiguous: > > There isn't anything ambiguous about this, nor is it credible that there > are implementations that don't follow the intent of the spec. How do you know the intent of the spec? I have seen no meta discussion about the behavior of the file descriptor integer returned from open. The Steven's book makes no such assumptions, and the steven's book (Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment) is what people reference. > Consider > the standard paradigm for replacing stdout: you close(1) and then open() > the target file. If the open() doesn't pick 1 as the fd, you're screwed. > Every shell in the world would break atop such an implementation. I said that stdin, stdout, and stderr would be treated differently as they are on all platforms. > > It may well be the case that saving 4 bytes per VFD is useless > micro-optimization. But the code isn't broken as it stands. It most likely is not broken as it is, but it would be interesting to put an assert(fd < 32768) in the code and see if it ever breaks. Never the less, the spec DOES call for file fds to be a machine "int." All acceptable coding practices would demand that since the API spec calls for an int, the application should use an int. This is the sort of thing that is caught and fixed in any standard code review. Why is this an argument? What am I missing that you are defending? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] signed short fd
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >>> The POSIX spec requires open() to assign fd's consecutively from zero. >>> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/open.html > >> With all due respect, PostgreSQL now runs natively on Win32. > > ... using the POSIX APIs that Microsoft so kindly provides. > fd.c will certainly not work at all on a platform that doesn't > provide a POSIX-like file access API, and in the absence of any > evidence to the contrary, I don't see why we shouldn't assume > that the platform adheres to that part of the spec too. > I'm a "better safe than sorry" sort of guy. I would rather code defensively against a poorly implemented API. However: "Upon successful completion, the function will open the file and return a non-negative integer representing the lowest numbered unused file descriptor. Otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. No files will be created or modified if the function returns -1." That is hardly anything that I would feel comfortable with. Lets break this down into all the areas that are ambiguous: "unused" file descriptor, define "unused." Is it unused ever, or currently unused? Could an API developer simply just increment file opens? What about just allocating a structure on each open, and returning its pointer cast to an int? Also notice that no mention of process separation exists, it could very well be that a file descriptor may be usable system wide, with the exceptions of stdin, stdout, and stderr. Nowhere does it say how the file descriptors are numbered. 1,2,3,4 sure, that's what you expect, but it isn't an explicitly documented behavior. What is documented, however, that it is a machine "int" and that the number will be positive and be the lowest "unused" descriptor (depending on the definition of "unused") This is the sort of thing that makes software brittle and likely to crash. Sure, you may be "right" in saying a "short int" is enough. Some developer creating a POSIX clib my think he is right doing something his way. What happens is that there is a potentially serious bug that will only show up at seemingly random times. The fact is that it is PostgreSQL that would be wrong, the API is documented as taking an "int." PostgreSQL casts it to a "short." What ever you read into the implementation of the API is wrong. The API is an abstraction and you should assume you don't know anything about it. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] signed short fd
> >> Maybe we make the assumption that all OS will >> implement "fd" as an array index > > The POSIX spec requires open() to assign fd's consecutively from zero. > http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/open.html With all due respect, PostgreSQL now runs natively on Win32. Having a POSIX-only mentality, especially with something so trivial, is a mistake. I would say "int" is the best way to handle it. You just *never* know. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> Tom Lane wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> >>> Please see my posting about using a macro for snprintf. >> >> > Wasn't the issue about odd behavior of the Win32 linker choosing the >> wrong >> > vnsprintf? >> >> You're right, the point about the macro was to avoid linker weirdness on >> Windows. We need to do that part in any case. I think Bruce confused >> that issue with the one about whether our version supported %n$ >> adequately ... which it doesn't just yet ... > > Perhaps I am reading old email in this reply but I thought I should > clarify: > > Once we do: > > #define vsnprintf(...)pg_vsnprintf(__VA_ARGS__) > #define snprintf(...) pg_snprintf(__VA_ARGS__) > #define printf(...) pg_printf(__VA_ARGS__) I'm not sure that macros can have variable number of arguments on all supported platforms. I've been burnt by this before. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> Tom Lane wrote: >> Bruce Momjian writes: >> > Please see my posting about using a macro for snprintf. If the >> current >> > implementation of snprintf is enough for our existing translation >> users >> > we probably don't need to add anything more to it because snprintf >> will >> > not be exported to client applications. >> >> The CVS-tip implementation is fundamentally broken and won't work even >> for our internal uses. I've not wasted time complaining about it >> because I thought we were going to replace it. If we can't find a >> usable replacement then we're going to have to put a lot of effort >> into fixing what's there. On the whole I think the effort would be >> better spent importing someone else's solution. > > Oh, so our existing implementation doesn't even meet our needs. OK. Wasn't the issue about odd behavior of the Win32 linker choosing the wrong vnsprintf? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
>From what I recall from the conversation, I would say rename the vsprintf and the sprintf functions in postgres to pq_vsnprintf and pq_snprintf. Define a couple macros: (in some common header, pqprintf.h?) #define snprintf pq_snprintf #define vsnprintf pq_snprintf Then just maintain the postgres forms of printf which have seemed to be OK except that on Win32 vnsprintf, although in the same object file was not being used. > Dear all, > After struggling for one week to to integrate FreeBSD's vfprintf.c into > PostgreSQL I finally gave up. It is too dependent on underlying > FreeBSD system functions. To incorporate it into PostgreSQL we need > to move vfprintf.c file itself, two dozen files form gdtoa and a half > a dozen __XXtoa.c files scattered in apparently random fashion all > around FreeBSD source tree. > > Instead I researched some other implementations of snprintf on > the web released under a license compatible with PostgreSQL's. > The most suitable one I have come upon is Trio > [http://daniel.haxx.se/projects/trio/]. > It is distributed under a MIT-like license which, I think will be > compatible with us. > > What do you think about it? Shall I abandon FreeBSD and go ahead > ıncorporatıng Trıo? > > And by the way, what ıs the conclusıon of snprıntf() vs. pg_snprintf() > and UNIX libraries discussion a week ago? Which one shall > I implement? > > Regards, > Nicolai Tufar > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? > >http://archives.postgresql.org > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
[HACKERS] Manual vs automatic functionality
Tom recently said, when talking about allowing the user (in this case me) from passing a hash table size to "create index:" "but that doesn't mean I want to make the user deal with it." I started thinking about this and, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I would like the ability to deal with it. So much software these days does things in an automatic fashion, and too often you are left saying "stop, no do it that way, damn!" tossing hands up in frustration. Come on, be honest, we all fight this. I think the holy grail of completly automatic tuning/functionality is a lofty goal and a good one to seek, but the harsh reality is that there are many times when the statistics aren't sufficient and the very broad audience to which PostgreSQL is targeted clouds various specific use cases. I have been on the end of these problems numerous times in the almost 10 years of using PostgreSQL. While I still believe that PostgreSQL is, by far, one of the best and most usable databases out there, there are times I just get frustrated. Being able to assign "hints" to queries may be able to allow DBAs to tune queries in tables who's characteristics are misrepresented by the statistics in ANALYZE. Being able to pass a hash table size to a hash CREATE INDEX statement, may make hash table faster. Whould a "hinting" syntax help this out? I don't know, but I do know that just about every non-trivial project for which I have used PostgreSQL, I have run into issues where I've had to manually alter statistics source code, or enable/disable scan types to work around situations where PG just didn't understand the nature of the problem. Also, isn't "SET enable_seqscan=FALSE" just another more clumsy way of issuing a hint to the planner? CREATE INDEX mytablehash ON mytable USING hash /* +HASH_SIZE(1000) */ SELECT * from table1, table2 where table1.realm = table2.realm and table1.name = 'foo' /* +USE_INDEX(tabel1.realm) +USE_HASH(table1.realm, table2.realm) */ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] db cluster ?
> Hello hackers, > > i'm wondering if is possible to somehow spread pretty big db (aprox 50G) > over few boxes to get more speed ? > if anyone did that i'd be glad to have some directions in right way, > I have done different elements of clusering with PostgreSQL on a per task basis, but not a fully comprehensive generic distributed cluster. There are a couple tools you can use if your are an engineering sort of fellow. Sloney is a replication cluster, all the data is on all the machines. There is a project that shows promise as a distributed data system: contrib/dblink. One could segment their database as a number of logical data managers and use dblink to incorporate the data on one database into the queries on another. It won't be transparent, but could be fairly managable if you use views to implement the links. I guess the real question is what performance do you need to improve? If it is just read performance, then sloney is probably your best bet. Put a number of redundant machines behind a load balancer and you are all set. If you need to increase write performance, well, that can be problematic. What is it that your want to accomplish? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] bitmap AM design
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> Anyway, IMHO, hash indexes would be dramatically improved if you could >> specify your own hashing function > > That's called a custom operator class. Would I also be able to query the bucket size and all that? > >> and declare initial table size. > > It would be interesting to see if setting up the hashtable with about > the right number of buckets initially would make CREATE INDEX enough > faster to be a win ... but that doesn't mean I want to make the user > deal with it. We could probably hack hashbuild() to estimate the > size of the parent table using the same code that the planner is now > using (ie, actual size in pages times a possibly-dead-reckoning rows > per page estimate). > I know a linear hash is different than a classic simple hash table, but a classic simple hash table has some great advantages at the expense of disk space. IMHO being able to use the hash index in a way that is more of the classic theoretical hash table and use the linear behavor if the table grows beyond initial estimates I think would be a big win. It could actually get to a 1:1 operation data retrieval on properly estimated tables. Estimations are a great idea, something like first prime after 2*NROWS (with a GUC limit, I guess) would probably make hash indexes the fastest most disk hogging index around. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] bitmap AM design
> Pailloncy Jean-Gerard wrote: >> You should have a look to this thread >> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2005-02/msg00263.php >> >> Take a look at this paper about "lock-free parallel hash table" >> http://www.cs.rug.nl/~wim/mechver/hashtable/ > > Is this relevant? Hash indexes are on-disk data structures, so ISTM > lock-free algorithms aren't really applicable. > > (BTW, is poor concurrency really the biggest issue with hash indexes? If > so, there is some low-hanging fruit that I noticed a few years ago, but > never got around to fixing: _hash_doinsert() write-locks the hash > metapage on every insertion merely to increment a tuple counter. This > could be improved by just acquiring the lock with probability 1/k, and > incrementing the counter k times -- or some similar statistical > approximation. IMHO there are bigger issues with hash indexes, like the > lack of WAL safety, the very slow index build times, and their > relatively poor performance -- i.e. no better than btree for any > workload I've seen. If someone wants to step up to the plate and fix > some of that, I'll improve hash index concurrency -- any takers? :-) ) > As always, I'd love to have the time to do this stuff, but as always, I'm not in the position to spend any time on it. It's frustrating. Anyway, IMHO, hash indexes would be dramatically improved if you could specify your own hashing function and declare initial table size. If you could do that, and work on an assumption that the hashing index was for fairly static data, it could handle many needs. As it stands, hash indexes are virtually useless. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] bitmap AM design
> Ühel kenal päeval (teisipäev, 1. märts 2005, 14:54-0500), kirjutas > [EMAIL PROTECTED]: >> Now, it occurs to me that if my document reference table can refer to >> something other than an indexed primary key, I can save a lot of index >> processing time in PostgreSQL if I can have a "safe" analogy to CTID. > > I guess you could work on making hash indexes better (for concurrent > access). > > 'a "safe" analogy to CTID' looks remarkably like hash index > Yes, I agree, but I don't particularly like linear hash models without the ability to adjust the initial table size estimates. Also, hash tables without access to the hash function typically have a lot of collision, specifically, I am dubious of "generic" hash functions having an optimally dispersed behavior. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] cluster table by two-column index ?
> I'm wondering, > is there any sense to cluster table using two-column index ? > > We've had this discussion a few weeks ago. Look at the archives for my post "One Big Trend " The problem is that while the statistics can resonably deal with the primary column it completely misses the trends produced in the secondary column. This situation can be seen quite clearly using the US Census TIGER database. I imagine the primary and secondary columns both have a discrete index and the combined index is for the cluser or more complex queries. If you execute a query based on the secondary column's index that should return about 100 rows. The "smaller" trends in the column produced by the cluster are not detected. So, rather then seeing that its probably a few index seeks and a few table seeks because the data is fairly well grouped, it opts, instead, to do a table scan because it doesn't see any correlation. Increasing the number of samples in ANALIZE helps a bit, but the solution is better statistics or maybe hints that can be embedded into the query. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> Bruce Momjian writes: >> Tom Lane wrote: >>> First line of thought: we surely must not insert a snprintf into >>> libpq.so unless it is 100% up to spec *and* has no performance issues >>> ... neither of which can be claimed of the CVS-tip version. > >> Agreed, and we have to support all the 64-bit specifications a port >> might support like %qd and %I64d as well as %lld. I have added that to >> our current CVS version. > > I really dislike that idea and request that you revert it. > >> Is there any way we can have just gettext() call our snprintf under a >> special name? > > The issue only comes up in libpq --- in the backend there is no reason > that snprintf can't be our snprintf, and likewise in self-contained > programs like psql. It might be worth the pain-in-the-neck quality to > have libpq refer to the functions as pq_snprintf etc. Perhaps we could > do this via macros > > #define snprintf pq_snprintf Didn't I suggest that earlier? :) Also, since it is vsnprintf that seems to be a bigger issue: #define vsnprintf pq_vsnprintf ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> > Yes, strangly the Window's linker is fine because libpqdll.def defines > what symbols are exported. I don't think Unix has that capability. A non-static "public" function in a Windows DLL is not available for dynamic linking unless explicitly declared as dll export. This behavior is completely different than UNIX shared libraries. Windows static libraries operate completely differently than Windows DLLs, they work like their UNIX equivilents. So, if you create an snprintf function in code that will be in both a static and dynamic library, the static library may have conflicts where as the dynamic one will not. Don't you love Windows? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression tests to fail
> > The big question is why our own vsnprintf() is not being called from > snprintf() in our port file. > I have seen this "problem" before, well, it isn't really a problem I guess. I'm not sure of the gcc compiler options, but On the Microsoft compiler if you specify the option "/Gy" it separates the functions within the object file, that way you don't load all the functions from the object if they are not needed. If, however, you create a function with the same name as another function, and one is declared in an object compiled with the "/Gy" option, and the other's object file is not, then if you also use a different function or reference variable in the object file compiled without the "/Gy" option, then the conflicting function will probably be used. Make sense? I would suggest using macro to redefine snprintf and vnsprintf to avoid the issue: #define snprintf pg_snprintf #define vnsprintf pg_vnsprintf ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 15:38:58 -0500 (EST), [EMAIL PROTECTED] > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Is there a reason why we don't use the snprintf that comes with the >> various C compilers? > > snprintf() is usually buried in OS libraries. We implement > our own snprintf to make things like this: > snprintf(buf,"%2$s %1$s","world","Hello"); > which is not supported on some platforms work. > > We do it for national language translation of > messages. In some languages you may need > to change order of parameters to make a meaningful > sentence. > > Another question is why we are using it for printing > values from database. I am not too good on function > overriding in standard C but maybe there is a way > to usage of standard snprintf() in a particular place. > Well, here is a stupid question, do we even know which snprintf we are using on Win32? May it be possible that we are using the MingW version which may be broken? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> I spent all day debugging it. Still have absolutely > no idea what could possibly go wrong. Does > anyone have a slightest clue what can it be and > why it manifests itself only on win32? It may be that the CLIB has badly broken support for 64bit integers on 32 bit platforms. Does anyone know of any Cygwin/Ming issues? Is this only with the new snprintf code in Win32? Is this a problem with snprintf as implemented in src/port? Is there a reason why we don't use the snprintf that comes with the various C compilers? > > > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 09:29:07 -0500 (EST), Bruce Momjian > wrote: >> Nicolai Tufar wrote: >> > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:55:20 -0500 (EST), Bruce Momjian >> > > My next guess >> > > is that Win32 isn't handling va_arg(..., long long int) properly. >> > > >> > >> > I am trying various combination of number and types >> > of parameters in my test program and everything prints fine. >> > When it comes to pg, it fails :( >> > >> > > > template1=# select * from test where x > 1000::int8; >> > > >x >> > > > >> > > >-869367531 >> > > > (1 row) >> > >> > I am not too fluent in source code, could someone >> > point me to there actual call to snprintf() is being done >> > when a query like this is executed. I could not find it myslef >> >> Sure, in src/backend/utils/adt/int8.c, there is a call in int8out(): >> >> if ((len = snprintf(buf, MAXINT8LEN, INT64_FORMAT, val)) < 0) >> >> and that calls port/snprintf.c. >> >> I have added a puts() in snprintf.c to make sure it is getting the >> long/long specifier. >> >> -- >> Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us >> pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 >> + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road >> + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania >> 19073 >> > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression
> Nicolai Tufar wrote: >> On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:55:20 -0500 (EST), Bruce Momjian >> > My next guess >> > is that Win32 isn't handling va_arg(..., long long int) properly. >> > >> >> I am trying various combination of number and types >> of parameters in my test program and everything prints fine. >> When it comes to pg, it fails :( >> >> > > template1=# select * from test where x > 1000::int8; >> > >x >> > > >> > >-869367531 >> > > (1 row) >> >> I am not too fluent in source code, could someone >> point me to there actual call to snprintf() is being done >> when a query like this is executed. I could not find it myslef > > Sure, in src/backend/utils/adt/int8.c, there is a call in int8out(): > > if ((len = snprintf(buf, MAXINT8LEN, INT64_FORMAT, val)) < 0) > > and that calls port/snprintf.c. > > I have added a puts() in snprintf.c to make sure it is getting the > long/long specifier. Just a question, and don't mind me if I am being rude, isn't this the WRONG PLACE for a "printf" function? Wouldn't an "itoa" function be more efficient and be less problematic? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] bitmap AM design
OK, lets step back a bit and see if there is a solution that fits what we think we need and PostgreSQL. Lets talk about FTSS, its something I can discuss easily. It is a two stage system with an indexer and a server. Only the data to be indexed is in the database, all the FTSS data structures are in external files. The indexer creates a number of data structures. A table of document references, one entry per document. A table of words parsed, one word per entry A table of compressed bitmaps, one (or more) bitmap(s) per word. The relation of bits in the word bitmaps is one bit per document as ordered by the document table, i.e. if bit 5 is set high, then the fith document is selected. (Let's not discuss phrase analysis at this point.) When the indexer runs, it executes a query that produces a set of results. Each result has a document reference which is stored in the FTSS document table. The results are parsed out as discrete words, new words are added to the word table, previously used word's reference counts are incremented. A bitmap is created for each new word. The bit of the current document is set to "1." This procedure runs for each record in the query. The server runs as follows: accepts an HTTP request for search Parses out the discrete words. The word is found in the word table. The word's bitmap is retrieved from the bitmap table. A series of logical functions are performed on the retrieved bitmaps. The resulting bitmap contains all the relevant documents in the form of bits correlating to offsets into the document reference table. The list of document references is returned to the database and found using a "WHERE IN" clause. Now, it occurs to me that if my document reference table can refer to something other than an indexed primary key, I can save a lot of index processing time in PostgreSQL if I can have a "safe" analogy to CTID. I should be able to "know" more about a particular row (document) being referenced, because I have already been through the table once. I need to be able to "know" which rows are newer than my FTSS index so I can search those rows more dynamically. I currently do this by saving the highest value during indexing. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> A "persistent reference" index would be like almost any other index >> except >> that as new items are added to a table a new entry is added to the end >> of >> the index. When a row is updated, its CTID is updated in the table. > > This *does not work* under MVCC: it can't cope with referencing > multiple simultaneously existing versions of a row. In general, any > index design that includes the words "update in place" can be rejected > out of hand. > > In any case I still fail to see the advantage compared to an ordinary > serial primary key. You could have made your bitmaps reference the > serial numbers directly, instead of an intermediate table. (Either way > still fails to handle MVCC updates, unless the indexable attributes > cannot be changed by updates; but the intermediate table isn't helping > or hurting that.) > > A bitmap that indexes CTIDs directly could work, because it doesn't need > to update any entries in-place when a table row is updated. I didn't > care for the details of Victor's design because (a) the intermediate > list of CTIDs looks bulky and (b) it seemed to require a lot of data > shuffling to cope with growth of the table. But in principle it would > work. > > regards, tom lane > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] bitmap AM design
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> Tom, I posted a message about a week ago (I forget the name) about a >> persistent reference index, sort of like CTID, but basically a table >> lookup. The idea is to simulate a structure that ISAM sort of techniques >> can work in PostgreSQL. > >> Eliminating the bitmap index issue for a moment, how hard would it be to >> create a reference table like index? > > I didn't see the point. You cannot actually use CTID that way (at least > not without fundamentally redesigning our MVCC machinery) and anything > else you might come up with is effectively just a random unique ID that > has to be mapped through an index to find the row. I don't see the > advantage compared to any ordinary application-defined primary key. I have a search engine product which does use primary key based number. The search engine also uses an external bitmap index. Here is the process: Parse incoming text into discrete words. Look up each word and retrieve its bitmap. Combine all the bitmaps using the appropriate logical functions (AND, OR, etc) list out all the "1s" from the bitmaps as an entry into a table which points to the primary key number. Find all the records in the database with all the primary keys, sometimes hundreds or thousands of entries in a "WHERE IN (...)" clause. Now, after I've done all this logical work getting document numbers, I have to do an index lookup for each one (or, god forbid, a full table scan!) This can be a long process, longer than actually doing the text search with the bitmaps in the first place. A "persistent reference" index would be like almost any other index except that as new items are added to a table a new entry is added to the end of the index. When a row is updated, its CTID is updated in the table. When you run vacuum, you just update the CTID in the table as if it were any other index. When you delete an item, you clear the CDID value of the table entry. You can do "VACUUM COMPRESS INDEX myindex" which will re-order and compact the persistent reference. I know from a purely SQL standpoint, it sounds whacky, but from a VAR or consultants point of view, it can really increase performance of some products. That last "WHERE IN" clause of my search engine can take several tens of seconds to run, but the actual search engine only took 0.03 seconds to find the documents. A persistent reference system would eliminate tens ro thousands of index lookups per search query. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] bitmap AM design
> I don't think we really need any more fundamentally nonconcurrent index > types :-( > Tom, I posted a message about a week ago (I forget the name) about a persistent reference index, sort of like CTID, but basically a table lookup. The idea is to simulate a structure that ISAM sort of techniques can work in PostgreSQL. Victor had emailed me and basically said he needed a similar sort of thing for this bitmap index. Eliminating the bitmap index issue for a moment, how hard would it be to create a reference table like index? I'm sure given that construct, the bitmap index becomes easier to construct. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] snprintf causes regression tests to fail
> Linux and Solaris 10 x86 pass regression tests fine when I force the use > of new > snprintf(). The problem should be win32 - specific. I will > investigate it throughly > tonight. Can someone experienced in win32 what can possibly be the > problem? Do we have any idea about what format string causes the regression failure? It may be that certain integer types are not promoted uniformly when pushed on the stack. > > Nick > > On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:07:16 +0100, Magnus Hagander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: >> Hi! >> >> The new snpritnf code appears not to deal with 64-bit ints. I'm getting >> failures on win32 for int8 as well as all the time related tests (win32 >> uses int8 for tinmestamps). Removing the snprintf code and falling back >> to the OS code makes everything pass again. >> >> I would guess this affects int8 etc on other platforms as well (assuming >> they use our snprintf and not the libc one), but I haven't checked it. >> >> //Magnus >> >> > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your > joining column's datatypes do not match > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] [HACKERS] win32 performance - fsync
> "Magnus Hagander" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> My results are: >> Fisrt, baseline: >> * Linux, with fsync (default), write-cache disabled: no data corruption >> * Linux, with fsync (default), write-cache enabled: usually no data >> corruption, but two runs which had > > That makes sense. > >> * Win32, with fsync, write-cache disabled: no data corruption >> * Win32, with fsync, write-cache enabled: no data corruption >> * Win32, with osync, write cache disabled: no data corruption >> * Win32, with osync, write cache enabled: no data corruption. Once I >> got: >> 2005-02-24 12:19:54 LOG: could not open file "C:/Program >> Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/pg_xlog/00010010" (log file 0, >> segment 16): No such file or directory >> but the data in the database was consistent. > > It disturbs me that you couldn't produce data corruption in the cases > where it theoretically should occur. Seems like this is an indication > that your test was insufficiently severe, or that there is something > going on we don't understand. > I was thinking about that. A few years back, Microsoft had some serious issues with write caching drives. They were taken to task for losing data if Windows shut down too fast, especially on drives with a large cache. MS is big enough and bad enough to get all the info they need from the various drive makers to know how to handle write cache flushing. Even the stuff that isn't documented. If anyone has a very good debugger and/or emulator or even a logic analyzer, it would be interesting to see if MS sends commands to the drives after a disk write or a set of disk writes. Also, I would like to see this test performed on NTFS and FAT32, and see if you are more likely to lose data on FAT32. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> Jim C. Nasby wrote: >> On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 09:55:38AM -0800, Ron Mayer wrote: >> >> > I still suspect that the correct way to do it would not be >> > to use the single "correlation", but 2 stats - one for estimating >> > how sequential/random accesses would be; and one for estimating >> > the number of pages that would be hit. I think the existing >> > correlation does well for the first estimate; but for many data >> > sets, poorly for the second type. >> >> Should this be made a TODO? Is there some way we can estimate how much >> this would help without actually building it? > > I guess I am confused how we would actually do that or if it is > possible. Bruce, we didn't get much time to talk at Linux world (It was nice to meet you). I'm not sure how you would go about it, but in my post "One big trend .." (In don't even remember anymore), I talk about tables that are physically sorted on multiple keys, the addresses: streetname, typename, state, zip. maple, st, ma, 02186 maple, st, ma, 02186 maple, rd, ma, 02186 maple, ave, ma, 02186 maple, st, me, ?? Assuming the table is physically sorted by state, town (zip), streetname, streettype, zip. If one were to type: select * from locations where streetname = 'maple'; The analysis of that query improperly minimizes the correlation of the street address of the table at whole. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 18:04:42 -0500, >> >> >> >> Now, lets imagine PostgreSQL is being developed by a large company. >> QA >> >> announces it has found a bug that will cause all the users data to >> >> disappear if they don't run a maintenence program correctly. >> Vacuuming >> >> one >> >> or two tables is not enough, you have to vacuum all tables in all >> >> databases. >> > >> > Except that Postgres isn't a large company and doing the work of >> > back patching and testing old versions will be done instead of >> > more important work. >> >> PostgreSQL is an open source project that plays with the big guys. Look >> at >> the Linux kernel. Imagine their file system guys thinking this way. >> Linux >> would still be Linus' hobbie. > > So, you are certain that every Linux file system bug has been patched all > the way back to say kernel version 1.0 then? Do you have any evidence of > this claim? No one is suggesting back to version 1.0, but critical data loss bugs that are present and relvent in used prior versions are fixed. > >> >> This bug would get marked as a critical error and a full scale effort >> >> would be made to contact previous users to upgrade or check their >> >> procedures. >> > >> > I don't think all commercial companies would do that. I doubt that >> even >> > most of them would. >> >> Database companies? You bet they would. > > Do you have any evidence or are you merely spouting an opinion as fact? > With Oracle and DB2, yes I have some personal experience. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 18:04:42 -0500, >> >> Now, lets imagine PostgreSQL is being developed by a large company. QA >> announces it has found a bug that will cause all the users data to >> disappear if they don't run a maintenence program correctly. Vacuuming >> one >> or two tables is not enough, you have to vacuum all tables in all >> databases. > > Except that Postgres isn't a large company and doing the work of > back patching and testing old versions will be done instead of > more important work. PostgreSQL is an open source project that plays with the big guys. Look at the Linux kernel. Imagine their file system guys thinking this way. Linux would still be Linus' hobbie. > >> This bug would get marked as a critical error and a full scale effort >> would be made to contact previous users to upgrade or check their >> procedures. > > I don't think all commercial companies would do that. I doubt that even > most of them would. Database companies? You bet they would. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> [ Shrugs ] and looks at other database systems ... > > CA has put Ingres into Open Source last year. > > Very reliable system with a replicator worth looking at. > > Just a thought. The discussion on hackers is how to make PostgreSQL better. There are many different perspectives, differences are argued and concensus reached, and a better PostgreSQL emerges. Going to another database would be counter productive to the process. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 13:35:25 -0500, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> The catastrophic failure of the database because a maintenence function >> is >> not performed is a problem with the software, not with the people using >> it. > > There doesn't seem to be disagreement that something should be done going > forward. > > The disagreement sems to be what effort should be made in back porting > fixes to previous versions. Now, lets imagine PostgreSQL is being developed by a large company. QA announces it has found a bug that will cause all the users data to disappear if they don't run a maintenence program correctly. Vacuuming one or two tables is not enough, you have to vacuum all tables in all databases. This bug would get marked as a critical error and a full scale effort would be made to contact previous users to upgrade or check their procedures. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 22:35:31 -0500, Tom Lane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> > I think there should be a 100% no data loss fail safe. >> >> Possibly we need to recalibrate our expectations here. The current >> situation is that PostgreSQL will not lose data if: >> >>1. Your disk drive doesn't screw up (eg, lie about write >> complete, >> or just plain die on you). >>2. Your kernel and filesystem don't screw up. >>3. You follow the instructions about routine vacuuming. >>4. You don't hit any bugs that we don't know about. >> > I'm not an expert but a happy user. My opinion is: > 1) there is nothing to do with #1 and #2. > 2) #4 is not a big problem because of the velocity developers fix > those when a bug is found. > > 3) All databases has some type of maintenance routine, in informix for > example we have (update statistics, and there are others for oracle) > of course they are for performance reasons, but vacuum is too for that > and additionally give us the XID wraparound. > So, to have a maintenance routine in PostgreSQL is not bad. *Bad* is > to have a DBA(1) with no clue about the tool is using. Tools that do > to much are an incentive in hire *no clue* people. > > (1) DBA: DataBase Administrator or DataBase Aniquilator??? PostgreSQL is such an awesome project. The only thing it seems to suffer from is a disregard for its users. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> I think there should be a 100% no data loss fail safe. OK, maybe I was overly broad in my statement, but I assumed a context that I guess you missed. Don't you think that in normal operations, i.e. with no hardware of OS failure, we should see any data loss as unacceptable? If a bug causes data loss, it is a big deal right? > > Possibly we need to recalibrate our expectations here. The current > situation is that PostgreSQL will not lose data if: > > 1. Your disk drive doesn't screw up (eg, lie about write complete, > or just plain die on you). > 2. Your kernel and filesystem don't screw up. > 3. You follow the instructions about routine vacuuming. > 4. You don't hit any bugs that we don't know about. > See, here is where I strongly disagree.Items (1) and (2) are completely out of our control and no one would blame PostgreSQL. Item (4) is an issue with all software, every now and then people hit bugs and the bug is reported and assumed to get fixed. Item (3) is just nasty, RTFM or else sucka! I think it is a very user hostile stance. > I agree that it's a nice idea to be able to eliminate assumption #3 from > our list of gotchas, but the big picture is that it's hard to believe > that doing this will make for a quantum jump in the overall level of > reliability. I think I listed the risks in roughly the right order of > severity ... Sometimes the edge conditions of a problem are not so obscure. I think (3) is a huge issue, iamgine I'm in this meeting: DBA: We can't use PostgreSQL, if we forget to do normal maintenence we'll lose all our data. ME: Well, there is an amount of truth in that, but we just won't forget. DBA: Sorry, I don't trust it. CTO: Mark, I think joe has some serious issues that need to be resolved before we can move on this. Boom!! Lost. > > I'm willing to fix this for 8.1 (and am already in process of drafting a > patch), especially since it ties into some other known problems such as > the pg_pwd/pg_group files not being properly reconstructed after PITR > recovery. But I think that a "Chinese fire drill" is not called for, > and backpatching a significant but poorly tested change falls into that > category IMHO. > > regards, tom lane > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 04:10 am, Tom Lane wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> > In fact, I think it is so bad, that I think we need to back-port a fix >> to >> > previous versions and issue a notice of some kind. >> >> They already do issue notices --- see VACUUM. >> >> A real fix (eg the forcible stop we were talking about earlier) will not >> be reasonable to back-port. >> > Not to be rude, but if backporting is not an option, why do we not just > focus on the job of getting autovacuum into 8.1, and not have to think > about how a patch that will warn users will work? Unless I'm mistaken, even "autovacuum" may not be enough. AFAIK, autovacuum depends on the statistics daemon, and some admins may turn that off for performance. Even so, how unlikely is it that autovacuum doesn't run. I think there should be a 100% no data loss fail safe. Anything less is a cop-out. I can't see one successful argument that starts with data loss and ends with maintenence. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
More suggestions: (1) At startup, postmaster checks for an XID, if it is close to a problem, force a vacuum. (2) At "sig term" shutdown, can the postmaster start a vacuum? (3) When the XID count goes past the "trip wire" can it spontaneously issue a vacuum? NOTE: Suggestions 1 and 2 are for 8.0 and prior. 3 is for later than 8.0.1 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
[HACKERS] Data loss, vacuum, transaction wrap-around
I want to see if there is a concensus of opinion out there. We've all known that data loss "could" happen if vacuum is not run and you perform more than 2b transactions. These days with faster and bigger computers and disks, it more likely that this problem can be hit in months -- not years. To me, the WORST thing a program can do is lose data. (Certainly this is bad for a database.) I don't think there is any real excuse for this. While the 2b transaction problem was always there, it seemed so remote that I never obcessed about it. Now that it seems like a real problem that more than one user has hit, I am worried. In fact, I think it is so bad, that I think we need to back-port a fix to previous versions and issue a notice of some kind. Here as my suggestions: (1) As Tom has already said, at some point start issuing warning in the log that vacuum needs to be run. (2) At some point, stop accepting transactions on anything but template1, issuing an error saying the vacuum needs to be run. (3) Either with psql on template1 or "postgres" or some "vacuumall" program, open the database in single user mode or on template1 and vacuum database. (4) This should remain even after autovacuum is in place. If for some reason auto vacuum is installed but not running, we still need to protect the data from a stupid admin. (Last time I looked, auto vacuum used various stats, and that may be something an admin disables.) (5) Vacuum could check for a wrap-around condition in the database cluster and take it upon itself to run more broadly even if it was directed only towards a table. We've been saying that mysql is ok if you don't care about your data, I would hate if people started using this issue against postgresql. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
> Gaetano Mendola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> We do ~4000 txn/minute so in 6 month you are screewd up... > > Sure, but if you ran without vacuuming for 6 months, wouldn't you notice > the > huge slowdowns from all those dead tuples before that? > > I would think that only applies to databases where UPDATE and DELETE are done often. What about databases that are 99.999% inserts? A DBA lightly going over the docs may not even know that vacuum needs to be run. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
> > On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> > >> >> > >> >> > Once autovacuum gets to the point where it's used by default, this >> >> > particular failure mode should be a thing of the past, but in the >> >> > meantime I'm not going to panic about it. >> >> >> >> I don't know how to say this without sounding like a jerk, (I guess >> >> that's >> >> my role sometimes) but would you go back and re-read this sentence? >> >> >> >> To paraphrase: "I know this causes a catestrophic data loss, and we >> have >> >> plans to fix it in the future, but for now, I'm not going panic about >> >> it." >> > >> > Do you have a useful suggestion about how to fix it? "Stop working" >> is >> > handwaving and merely basically saying, "one of you people should do >> > something about this" is not a solution to the problem, it's not even >> an >> > approach towards a solution to the problem. >> >> Actually, it is not a solution to the problem of losing data. It is a >> drop >> dead last ditch failsafe that EVERY PRODUCT should have before losing >> data. > > Let's try again. Saying, "one of you people should do something about > this" is not a solution to the problem or an approach thereto. "Stop > working" is handwaving since I see no approach therein that allows the > user to actually recover the data. > Well, it is sort of the the Hockey strike, now that it seems like stoping normal operation is better than losing billions of rows of data. We can decide who to do it and how to correct it. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
> Stephan Szabo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Right, but since the how to resolve it currently involves executing a >> query, simply stopping dead won't allow you to resolve it. Also, if we >> stop at the exact wraparound point, can we run into problems actually >> trying to do the vacuum if that's still the resolution technique? > > We'd have to do something with a fair amount of slop. The idea I was > toying with just now involved a forcible shutdown once we get within > say 100,000 transactions of a wrap failure; but apply this check only > when in interactive operation. This would allow the DBA to perform > the needed VACUUMing manually in a standalone backend. > > The real question here is exactly how large a cluestick do you want to > hit the DBA with. I don't think we can "guarantee" no data loss with > anything less than forced shutdown, but that's not so much a cluestick > as a clue howitzer. I think a DBA or accidental DBA would prefer stating in a meeting: "Yea, the database shut down because I didn't perform normal maintenence, its fixed now and we have a script in place so it won't happen again" Over "Yea, the database lost all its data and we have to restore from our last backup because I didn't perform normal maintenence." One gets a "boy are you lucky" over a "you're fired." > > Maybe > > (a) within 200,000 transactions of wrap, every transaction start > delivers a WARNING message; > > (b) within 100,000 transactions, forced shutdown as above. I agree. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
> > On Wed, 16 Feb 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >> >> >Do you have a useful suggestion about how to fix it? "Stop working" is >> >handwaving and merely basically saying, "one of you people should do >> >something about this" is not a solution to the problem, it's not even >> an >> >approach towards a solution to the problem. >> > >> > >> I believe that the ability for PostgreSQL to stop accepting >> queries and to log to the file or STDERR why it stopped working >> and how to resolve it is appropriate. > > Right, but since the how to resolve it currently involves executing a > query, simply stopping dead won't allow you to resolve it. Also, if we > stop at the exact wraparound point, can we run into problems actually > trying to do the vacuum if that's still the resolution technique? If so, > how far in advance of wraparound must we stop to guarantee it will > succeed? It's not rocket science, but figuring such things out is part of I would say, have a GUC parameter set at 1000 transactions. When fewer than this number are available, postmaster will not run and issue a message "Transaction wrap-around error! You must run vacuum in stingle user postgres mode to correct it, to avoid this message run the vacuum command more frequently" Hell, why not block all the PostgreSQL processes and run vacuum? But, for now, versions of PostgreSQL should stop before losing data. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > >> > Once autovacuum gets to the point where it's used by default, this >> > particular failure mode should be a thing of the past, but in the >> > meantime I'm not going to panic about it. >> >> I don't know how to say this without sounding like a jerk, (I guess >> that's >> my role sometimes) but would you go back and re-read this sentence? >> >> To paraphrase: "I know this causes a catestrophic data loss, and we have >> plans to fix it in the future, but for now, I'm not going panic about >> it." > > Do you have a useful suggestion about how to fix it? "Stop working" is > handwaving and merely basically saying, "one of you people should do > something about this" is not a solution to the problem, it's not even an > approach towards a solution to the problem. Actually, it is not a solution to the problem of losing data. It is a drop dead last ditch failsafe that EVERY PRODUCT should have before losing data. > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't the prospect of data loss >> (even >> in the presense of admin ignorance) be something that should be >> unacceptable? Certainly within the realm "normal PostgreSQL" operation. > > [ shrug... ] The DBA will always be able to find a way to shoot himself > in the foot. We've seen several instances of people blowing away > pg_xlog and pg_clog, for example, because they "don't need log files". > Or how about failing to keep adequate backups? That's a sure way for an > ignorant admin to lose data too. There is a difference between actively doing something stupid and failing to realize a maintenence task is required. PostgreSQL should stop working. When the admin tries to understand why, they can read a troubleshooting FAQ and say "oops, I gotta run this vacuum thingy." That is a whole lot better than falling off a cliff you didn't even know was there. > > Once autovacuum gets to the point where it's used by default, this > particular failure mode should be a thing of the past, but in the > meantime I'm not going to panic about it. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a jerk, (I guess that's my role sometimes) but would you go back and re-read this sentence? To paraphrase: "I know this causes a catestrophic data loss, and we have plans to fix it in the future, but for now, I'm not going panic about it." What would you do if the FreeBSD group or Linux kernel group said this about a file system? If you failed to run fsck after 100 mounts, you loose your data? I thought PostgreSQL was about "protecting your data." How many times have we smugly said, "yea, you can use MySQL if you don't care about your data." Any data loss caused by postgresql should be seen as unacceptable. It's funny, while I've known about this for a while, and it has always seemed a sort of distant edge condition that is easily avoided. However, with todays faster machines and disks, it is easier to reach this limitation than ever before. All PostgreSQL needs is one or two VERY UPSET mainstream users who lose data to completely reverse the momemntum that it is gaining. No amount of engineering discussion about it not being the fault of postgresql will be lost, and rightfully so, IMHO. Sorry. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
>> The checkpointer is entirely incapable of either detecting the problem >> (it doesn't have enough infrastructure to examine pg_database in a >> reasonable way) or preventing backends from doing anything if it did >> know there was a problem. > > Well, I guess I meant 'some regularly running process'... > >>>I think people'd rather their db just stopped accepting new transactions >>>rather than just losing data... >> >> Not being able to issue new transactions *is* data loss --- how are you >> going to get the system out of that state? > > Not allowing any transactions except a vacuum... > >> autovacuum is the correct long-term solution to this, not some kind of >> automatic hara-kiri. > > Yeah, seems like it should really happen soon... > > Chris Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't the prospect of data loss (even in the presense of admin ignorance) be something that should be unacceptable? Certainly within the realm "normal PostgreSQL" operation. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
[HACKERS] PostgreSQL at Linux World
I was at Linux world Tuesday, it was pretty good. I was in the "org" pavilion, where the "real" Linux resides. The corporate people were on the other side of the room. (There was a divider where the rest rooms and elevators were.) I say that this was where the "real" linux resides because all the "real" brains behind Linux were there, x.org, debian, fsf, kde, gnome, gentoo, and so on. Bruce was sort of in the middle of the room with his company. Our booth was off in the corner. (cold drafty corner.) Anyway, I noticed "Pervasive" software selling PostgreSQL support in the corporate end of the room. Bless them, they were trying to sell me on a GUI front end for PostgreSQL, asked "What tool to you use to administer PostgreSQL?" My answer? "psql" The crestfallen salesman knew that I was not interested in GUI frontends. It was kind of funny, sad in a a way, but funny never the less. Anyway, it was good to see PostgreSQL out in the corporate end of the building, I even got a couple very cute rubber elephants. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] I will be on Boston
I will be at the BLU booth Tuesday. Any and all, drop by. > I will be on Boston for Linuxworld from Tuesday through Thursday. I > will read email only occasionally. > > -- > Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us > pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 > + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road > + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania > 19073 > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] enforcing a plan (in brief)
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> I think that is sort of arrogant. Look at Oracle, you can give the >> planner >> hints in the form of comments. > > Arrogant or not, that's the general view of the people who work on the > planner. > > The real issue is not so much whether the planner will always get things > right --- it won't, and no one imagines that it will ever be perfect. > The real issue is that we have limited manpower, and designing and > implementing a useful hint facility is a nontrivial project. (Not to > mention that maintaining such a thing in the face of frequent, > fundamental changes to the underlying planner and executor capabilities > would be an outright nightmare.) > > The people who are actually doing the work think their time is more > usefully spent on improving the planner's intelligence than on devising > ways to override it. > I know I come on strong, and I know I'm probably irritating in many ways, however, I have been a PostgreSQL user since just after it was named postgreSQL from Postgres95. I've seen a lot of changes, and almost all of them have been quite good. I have over 10 years of using it on various projects. While I have not been lucky enough to get a gig in which I could contribute more, I do try to contribute and sometimes it is quite difficult. The one thing that I think you guys miss is actually using PostgreSQL in some projects where the company and the deliverables don't give a rat's ass about whether you use PostgreSQL or Oracle or something else. Over the years I have beat my head against the walls suggesting features, most of which eventually have come to PostgreSQL, but every one was a fight. I have some well founded opinions about PostgreSQL hard earned from real world situations. Agree or not, I have experience with this database and I have hit many of its short comings. One consistent problem is the planner not being able to handle this or that scenario. At this stage, the *best* way to improve the planner is to add the ability to place hints in the plan. It *is* good enough for 90% of the types of queries you would ever want to do. I am dubious that you can get it demonstrably better in the last 10% or so without making it worse. Simple hints would go a HUGE way to improving the last 10%. Many of the "Why doesn't PostgreSQL use my index" questions would go away. Most of the time Tom spends looking at people's pg_stats info would drop. It would actually save time. As a PostgreSQL user, I can tell you with 100% confidence, if I had this tool, I could do my job easier. I can also tell you that while I have genuine appreciation for the current quality of the planner, I still would like to be able to tailor queries specifically to test various approaches for performance reasons. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] 8.0.X and the ARC patent
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> Might it be possible to contact IBM directly and ask if they will allow >> usage of the patent for PostgreSQL. They've let 500 patents for open >> source, maybe they'll give a write off for this as well. >> >> There is an advantage beyond just not having to re-write the code, but >> it >> would also be sort of an IBM blessing, great PR. >> >> I will be at "Linux World" and see if there is an IBM booth, maybe I can >> get some contact info. > > I doubt they will give us something that extends to companies that sell > PostgreSQL so I don't see the point. Actually, I think that's wrong. IBM has been really gung-ho about Linux. Of course this is an obvious movement against Microsoft domination of the server market, but they have made some very strong open source statements and have release about 500 patents to open source projects. The current open source patents extend to companies that sell other products, why not PostgreSQL as well? There is a *LOT* of crap going on with patents, there are so many issues and motives that is hard to keep track of why who is doing what. My bet is that it is 50/50. It all depends if IBM wants to hurt Oracle more than it wants to defned DB2. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] 8.0.X and the ARC patent
Might it be possible to contact IBM directly and ask if they will allow usage of the patent for PostgreSQL. They've let 500 patents for open source, maybe they'll give a write off for this as well. There is an advantage beyond just not having to re-write the code, but it would also be sort of an IBM blessing, great PR. I will be at "Linux World" and see if there is an IBM booth, maybe I can get some contact info. > FYI, core has discussed the pending IBM ARC patent and the usage of > those ideas in 8.0. > > Tom has found a 2Q cache algorithm that predates the ARC patent and is > very similar to ARC. The major difference is that it doesn't auto-size > the ARC sub-buffers. > > Core believes it is best to backpatch this 2Q algorithm into 8.0.X to > avoid any possible patent problems if the patent is granted and > enforced. > > We are testing the use of the 2Q code to see if it has any performance > impact. The 8.0.X release that uses 2Q will have more extensive testing > than a normal minor release. 8.1 will have a new cache algorithm that > hopefully will remove the buffer contention problems experienced by SMP > machines. > > For development, this means we will _not_ have a shortened, non-initdb > 8.1 release but a regular release cycle with the typical big batch of > features. > > -- > Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us > pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 > + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road > + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania > 19073 > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > >http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] enforcing a plan (in brief)
> On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 14:37 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: >> No, we feel that is of limited value. If the optimizer isn't doing >> things properly, we will fix it. > > I agree that improving the optimizer is the right answer for normal > usage, so I can't get excited about query-level plan hints, but I can > see the capability to instruct the planner being useful in an academic > context. > I think that is sort of arrogant. Look at Oracle, you can give the planner hints in the form of comments. The idea that constructing a planner that will always do the best job is like creating a program that can predict the weather. There are too many subtle variations in datasets that are impossible to really evalute. I posted a message last week called "One Big trend vs multiple smaller trends." and you'll see what I mean. Yea, on a simple data organization, you could make a great planner, but someone who has studied the nature of their data can almost always toss their hands up in frustration because the planner isn't working right. I have had multiple issues with the inability to guide the planner on its decisions. I'll give a couple examples: A music database where the artist name is "Various Artists," given any normal database of music recordings, "Various Artists" will be *THE* most popular artist, usually close to almost half the data. Most of the time I've had to turn off sequential scans for these queries. (I filter out "various artists") Being able to say: select * from cdtitles where artist = 'foo' /* index scan ctitles_artist_ndx */ ; Would be helpful as disabling sequential scan isn't always the right think either. The whole "Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)" series of posts show a different problem. It all comes down to that the planner *can not* be perfect, and thus will always be lacking in some respect. This is because you can not anticipate every physical data storage pattern, therefore, the analyzer will not correctly characterize them, and the planner will not create an optimal plan. Allowing the user to suggest alternate query strategies is a good idea. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
>> I think you're pretty well screwed as far as getting it *all* back goes, >> but you could use pg_resetxlog to back up the NextXID counter enough to >> make your tables and databases reappear (and thereby lose the effects of >> however many recent transactions you back up over). >> >> Once you've found a NextXID setting you like, I'd suggest an immediate >> pg_dumpall/initdb/reload to make sure you have a consistent set of data. >> Don't VACUUM, or indeed modify the DB at all, until you have gotten a >> satisfactory dump. >> >> Then put in a cron job to do periodic vacuuming ;-) > > This might seem like a stupid question, but since this is a massive data > loss potential in PostgreSQL, what's so hard about having the > checkpointer or something check the transaction counter when it runs and > either issue a db-wide vacuum if it's about to wrap, or simply > disallow any new transactions? > > I think people'd rather their db just stopped accepting new transactions > rather than just losing data... > I would certainly prefer the system to issue an error and stop working than complete data loss. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Help me recovering data
It must be possible to create a tool based on the PostgreSQL sources that can read all the tuples in a database and dump them to a file stream. All the data remains in the file until overwritten with data after a vacuum. It *should* be doable. If there data in the table is worth anything, then it would be worth extracting. It would, of course, be a tool of last resort. > "Kouber Saparev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> After asking the guys in the [EMAIL PROTECTED] channel they >> told >> me that the reason is the "Transaction ID wraparound", because I have >> never >> ran VACUUM on the whole database. > >> So they proposed to ask here for help. I have stopped the server, but >> what >> could I do in order to save the data if it's possible at all? > > I think you're pretty well screwed as far as getting it *all* back goes, > but you could use pg_resetxlog to back up the NextXID counter enough to > make your tables and databases reappear (and thereby lose the effects of > however many recent transactions you back up over). > > Once you've found a NextXID setting you like, I'd suggest an immediate > pg_dumpall/initdb/reload to make sure you have a consistent set of data. > Don't VACUUM, or indeed modify the DB at all, until you have gotten a > satisfactory dump. > > Then put in a cron job to do periodic vacuuming ;-) > > regards, tom lane > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? > >http://archives.postgresql.org > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> Probably off-topic, but I think it's worth to see what astronomers are
> doing with their very big spatial databases. For example, we are working
> with more than 500,000,000 rows catalog and we use some special
> transformation
> of coordinates to integer numbers with preserving objects closeness.
> I hope we could show postgresql is good enough to be used in astronomy
> for very big catalogs. Currently, MS SQL is in use.
> See http://www.sdss.jhu.edu/htm/ for details. We use another technique.
You know, I don't think a lot of people "get" the issues I was describing,
or maybe they don't believe it, I don't know, but, I think that it would
be a useful contrib project to create an 'analyze_special('table',
'column', 'method')' function that does a better job at calculating the
stats for table that contain multiple trend waveforms. A separate function
will probably work well as the trends within the data probably only apply
to specific rows.
It's interesting, because I don't think it needs to calculate a perfect
representation of the data so much as better clue to its nature for the
optimizer.
When I get the time (or can get someone to pay me to do it) I'm going to
try it.
>
>
> Oleg
> On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> I wrote a message caled "One Big trend vs multiple smaller trends in
>> table
>> statistics" that, I think, explains what we've been seeing.
>>
>>
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In this case, the behavior observed could be changed by altering the
sample size for a table. I submit that an arbitrary fixed sample size
is
not a good base for the analyzer, but that the sample size should be
based
on the size of the table or some calculation of its deviation.
>>>
>>>Mark,
>>>
>>> Do you have any evidence that the Sample Size had anything to do
>>> with the performance problem you're seeing?
>>
>> Sample size is only a bandaid for the issue, however, more samples
>> always
>> provide more information.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> I also do a lot with the complete Census/TIGER database.
>>>
>>> Every problem I have with the optimizer comes down to the
>>> fact that the data is loaded (and ordered on disk) by
>>> State/County FIPS codes, and then queried by zip-code
>>> or by city name. Like this:
>>>
>>> Alabama36101 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 36***]
>>> Alaska 99686 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 9]
>>> Arizona85701 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 855**]
>>>
>>> Note that the zip codes are *NOT* sequential.
>>
>> Again, read "One Big Trend..." and let me know what you think. I think
>> it
>> describes exactly the problem that we see.
>>
>> For now, the solution that works for me is to seriously up the value of
>> "targrows" in analyze.c. It makes it take longer, and while the stats
>> are
>> not "correct" because they are not designed to detect these sorts of
>> patterns, a larger sample allows them to be "less wrong" enough to give
>> a
>> better hint to the planner.
>>
>>
>>
>> ---(end of broadcast)---
>> TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
>>
>
> Regards,
> Oleg
> _
> Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
> Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
> Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
> phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83
>
> ---(end of broadcast)---
> TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>
---(end of broadcast)---
TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?
http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] New form of index "persistent reference"
> If that ID is the only thing you use to access that data, why not just > store > it in a flat file with fixed-length records? seek() (or your language's > equivalent) is usually fast. As a matter of policy, I would never manage data outside of the database. > > If you need to drive that from within PostgreSQL, you would need an > untrusted language to read the file, but you could also generate it from a > table using a trigger. Very ugly. > > Or maybe use a serial column, an index on that column, and cluster the > table > on that index. It's more than one lookup, but not much with a Btree index. > (Not sure if this is better than just using a serial and an index. > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/sql-cluster.html says it > isn't, if I read it correctly.) Clustering is OK, but it doesn't handle updates and additions until you recluster the data. If a static reference is all that is needed, then merely using CTID would suffice. I was thinking a little overhead for a reference table would allow it to hook into PostgreSQL and keep it up to date. > > Then anytime there is a batch of updates to the table, re-cluster it. Yea, like I said, there are easier ways of doing that with fairly static data. > >> -Original Message- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 11:22 AM >> To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org >> Subject: [HACKERS] New form of index "persistent reference" >> >> >> For about 5 years now, I have been using a text search engine >> that I wrote >> and maintain. >> >> In the beginning, I hacked up function mechanisms to return >> multiple value >> sets and columns. Then PostgreSQL aded "setof" and it is was >> cool. Then it >> was able to return a set of rows, which was even better. >> >> Lately, I have been thinking that a cool form of index would >> be some sort >> of "persistent reference" index. Like the old ISAM days of >> yore, a fixed >> number could point you right to the row that you want. I'm >> not sure if the >> "persistent reference" is a specific auto numbering column type or >> separate index structure or both. >> >> I asked the question how do you get a record without going through an >> index, the answer was CTID, which unfortunately changes when >> the row is >> updated. >> >> Now, what I want to brainstorm is some sort of "persistent reference" >> where the value is not algorithmically stored, maybe just an >> offset into a >> table. The number of operations should be about 1 per lookup. >> >> Imagine a dynamically growing array that has one slot per >> row. Every row >> is considered unique. Rows which are updated, their CTID is >> updated in the >> reference. (with vacuum?) >> >> Imagine something like this: >> >> create table foobar(id reference, name varchar, value varchar); >> >> select * from foobar where id = 100; >> >> The reference type has an implicit index that is basically a >> lookup table. >> On unique references where the reference value is fairly >> arbitrary, this >> would be a HUGE gain for direct lookups. There is no need for >> the NlogN of >> a tree. >> >> On the surface level, this would be a huge win for websites that use >> semi-fixed tables of data. >> >> >> >> ---(end of >> broadcast)--- >> TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
[HACKERS] New form of index "persistent reference"
For about 5 years now, I have been using a text search engine that I wrote and maintain. In the beginning, I hacked up function mechanisms to return multiple value sets and columns. Then PostgreSQL aded "setof" and it is was cool. Then it was able to return a set of rows, which was even better. Lately, I have been thinking that a cool form of index would be some sort of "persistent reference" index. Like the old ISAM days of yore, a fixed number could point you right to the row that you want. I'm not sure if the "persistent reference" is a specific auto numbering column type or separate index structure or both. I asked the question how do you get a record without going through an index, the answer was CTID, which unfortunately changes when the row is updated. Now, what I want to brainstorm is some sort of "persistent reference" where the value is not algorithmically stored, maybe just an offset into a table. The number of operations should be about 1 per lookup. Imagine a dynamically growing array that has one slot per row. Every row is considered unique. Rows which are updated, their CTID is updated in the reference. (with vacuum?) Imagine something like this: create table foobar(id reference, name varchar, value varchar); select * from foobar where id = 100; The reference type has an implicit index that is basically a lookup table. On unique references where the reference value is fairly arbitrary, this would be a HUGE gain for direct lookups. There is no need for the NlogN of a tree. On the surface level, this would be a huge win for websites that use semi-fixed tables of data. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 07:30:16PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> I would love to keep these things current for PG development, but my >> company's server is on a plan that gets 1G free, and is billed after >> that. Also, I am on a broadband line at my office, and uploading the >> data >> would take days. > > Maybe post it as a Torrent? That still doesn't answer the question of the initial upload. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> Mark, > >> Hey, I can give you a copy of RT1 which is fine, but it is 1.1G >> compressed. I'd have to mail you a DVD. > > Sure, cool. > [address info sniped] I would be willing to send a couple DVDs (on a regular basis) to anyone who is able to post this on a good mirror that anyone could get at. I can send the US Census database, fully loaded and in compressed pg_dump format. I also have the latest CD database from www.freedb.org. I would love to keep these things current for PG development, but my company's server is on a plan that gets 1G free, and is billed after that. Also, I am on a broadband line at my office, and uploading the data would take days. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
I wrote a message caled "One Big trend vs multiple smaller trends in table statistics" that, I think, explains what we've been seeing. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> In this case, the behavior observed could be changed by altering the >> sample size for a table. I submit that an arbitrary fixed sample size is >> not a good base for the analyzer, but that the sample size should be >> based >> on the size of the table or some calculation of its deviation. >> > >Mark, > > Do you have any evidence that the Sample Size had anything to do > with the performance problem you're seeing? Sample size is only a bandaid for the issue, however, more samples always provide more information. > > I also do a lot with the complete Census/TIGER database. > > Every problem I have with the optimizer comes down to the > fact that the data is loaded (and ordered on disk) by > State/County FIPS codes, and then queried by zip-code > or by city name. Like this: > > Alabama36101 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 36***] > Alaska 99686 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 9] > Arizona85701 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 855**] > > Note that the zip codes are *NOT* sequential. Again, read "One Big Trend..." and let me know what you think. I think it describes exactly the problem that we see. For now, the solution that works for me is to seriously up the value of "targrows" in analyze.c. It makes it take longer, and while the stats are not "correct" because they are not designed to detect these sorts of patterns, a larger sample allows them to be "less wrong" enough to give a better hint to the planner. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> Mark, Stephen, etc: > >> > I can see your point, however I wonder if the issue is that the >> default >> > stats settings of '10' (3000 rows, 10 histogram buckets) is too low, >> and >> > maybe we should consider making a higher value (say '100') the >> default. >> >> Personally, I think that'd be reasonable. > > I don't really think that we want to increase sampling for *all* columns. > Each column that doesn't get queried but has increased stats adds the size > of > the pg_stats table and the amount of vacuuming it needs, decreasing > performance of stats lookups. Especially when very large text and BYTEA > columns are involved. > > Neil and I talked about setting a seperate GUC, > default_index_stats_target, > for 8.0 that would dramatically increase the stats sampling for indexed > columns only (say, to 250).Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with > a > good test case for setting this value. > > Perhaps the Tiger database would allow us to set up a good test case. > Does > anyone have a well-indexed PG Tiger I could play with? Hey, I can give you a copy of RT1 which is fine, but it is 1.1G compressed. I'd have to mail you a DVD. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Fast reference without an index?
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> Is there a way, and if I'm being stupid please tell me, to use something >> like a row ID to reference a row in a PostgreSQL database? Allowing the >> database to find a specific row without using an index? > > ctid ... which changes on every update ... Well, how does an index do it? Say this: select * from mytable where name = 'foo'; The index must return something. Say I have a row that it constantly being updated, or has an original item inserted. An item which is valid within my transaction, and an item which has just be inserted but has a transaction id greater than mine. Dosn't the index have some base number which points to the first valid occurance of the row, and then the valid row is found based on the transaction ID, or has PG changed? Is that the ctid? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
[HACKERS] Fast reference without an index?
A question to the hackers: Is there a way, and if I'm being stupid please tell me, to use something like a row ID to reference a row in a PostgreSQL database? Allowing the database to find a specific row without using an index? I mean, an index has to return something like a row ID for the database to find the row, right? Granted it has to find the version with the right transaction ID, but still, you get the idea. In the old days of ISAM stuff, it would just be the offset into the file. In my text search system, rather than create an additional indexed column for row ID, wouldn't it be more efficient if I could use PostgreSQL's data for this? This would greatly improve the performance of FTSS as it would eliminate the extra index operation per row returned. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] "external indices" ...
I haven't worked with GiST, although I have been curious from time to time. Just never had the time to sit, read, and try out the GiST system. On my text search system (FTSS) I use functions that return sets of data. It make be easier to implement that than a GiST. Basically, I create a unique ID index on a table of data. Create my external index. When a search is done, I return a set of unique IDs and ranks. > > I believe that this is what Oleg et al tap into with the tsearch2 stuff, > no? I have someone asking me about it, and want to make sure that I'm > telling him the right answer ... is this what GiST is? And, if so, what > is a *good* doc for me to point them at to get up to speed with it? Is > what we have in the docs the best place, or is there something someone > else has written that gets into it even more? > > Thanks ... > > > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services > (http://www.hub.org) > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: > 7615664 > > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] correlation in pg_stats
> > Short summary: > > * It looks to me like the planner vastly overestimates > the # of pages read by index scan in quite a few of my > tables even though stats collected by ANALYZE are correct. > > * The problem happens any time you have multiple columns > that have a number of repeated values in them, and > you CLUSTER the table by a sort using both columns > (like "city,state,zip,phone#" or "firstname,lastname"). > > * I think this is the problem that Mark Kirkwood is seeing > in his threads Query optimizer 8.0.1 and "One Big trend > vs multiple smaller trends" in hackers. actually [EMAIL PROTECTED], is Mark Woodward. Pleased to meet you. :) (I hate using my name on lists like this because of spammers) > > * A test script demonstrating the issue also follows. > > * I think keeping one more stat per attribute in > pg_stastic that could describe this behavior. > > > Longer: > > > If I understand the optimizer correctly, correlation is used > to both guess how much random disk access will be required in > a query; as well as estimate how many pages will be read. > > Unfortunately, many tables in my larger databases have > columns with values that are tightly packed on a few pages; > even though there is no total-ordering across the whole table. > Stephan Szabo described this as a "clumping effect": > http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2003-01/msg00286.php Yes. I think we are describing the exact same issue. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
[HACKERS] One Big trend vs multiple smaller trends in table statistics
A couple of us using the US Census TIGER database have noticed something about the statistics gathering of analyze. If you follow the thread "Query Optimizer 8.0.1" you'll see the progression of the debate. To summarize what I think we've seen: The current implementation of analyze is designed around sampling a table to characterize the basic trend of the data. The problem with the approach is that it assumes that the data has a singular trend behavior. Greg Stark posts "Cross column statistics" touches on the general problem. The best analogy so far is the difference between an oscilloscope and a spectrum analizer. The current statistics gathering is like a sampling oscilloscope trying to display a single wave form. Some data trends are more like audio signals where the data has many smaller trends in a seemingly random stream. With a specrum analyzer you can see the various components. Use Winamp or XMMS for a visualization. Lets assume data is in a multiple sort order. Lets assume it is a set of street addresses sorted by: state, streetname, streettyppe, address MA, ABBOT, RD, 100 MA, ABBOT, RD, 200 MA, ABBOT, RD, 300 MA, ABBOT, ST, 100 MA, ABBOT, ST, 200 MA, MAPLE, RD, 100 MA, MAPLE, RD, 200 MA, MAPLE, ST, 100 ... ... WY, ABBOT, RD, 100 etc. This table has MILLIONS of rows, every single address in the country. The "trend" of state is clearly an increasing step ramp over the entire table. The trend of streetname can be imagined as a waveform of a series of ramps for each state. The trend of streettype, similarly, is a series of ramps per street name, and the wave form for address is a ramp for each streettype. The statistics PostgreSQL currently employs will work great for "state," but much less so for "streetname." A query of "select * from addresses where streetname = 'ABBOT'" will be seen as more expensive than it really is. Most of the ABBOTs will be together in about 50 clusters (one for each state, assuming every state has atlease on "ABBOT"), but the current stats are not designed to detect this. Yes, eventually, if the sub-trends are small enough, the index scans become more expensive than table scans, but the current stats can't tell where that point is. Clearly it is not at the secondary sort (or "streetname") level. I've found that increasing the sample size in analyze.c can help in specific cases, but the overall problem remains. The question is: Is this really a problem? If so, what can we do? I was thinking of trying to compute a sliding window standard deviation which should be able to detect smaller trends in an overall table, this would require a lot of work in analyze.c. If the sliding window deviation is low, then the correlation of the table should be increased, telling the planner that an index scan is a better choice. The actual math behind the values has to be worked out, of course, but what do you think about the idea? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >> The basic problem with a fixed sample is that is assumes a normal >> distribution. > > That's sort of true, but not in the way you think it is. > [snip] Greg, I think you have an excellent ability to articulate stats, but I think that the view that this is like election polling is incorrect. Election polling assumes a very simple outcome: Some standard ditribution of a limited number options. I don't think it applies to this. > >> When you look at a sine wave on an oscilloscope, you can see it clear as >> day. When you look at music on the scope, you know there are many waves >> there, but it is difficult to make heads or tails of it. (use xmms or >> winamp to see for yourself) The waves change in frequency, amplitude, >> and >> duration over a very large scale. That's why you use a spectrum analyzer >> to go from time domain to frequency domain. In frequency domain, you can >> see the trends better. > > That's not a bad analogy to many problems where you're measuring data that > has > non-randomness in it but that are not visible in the domain that the > statistics that are being analyzed. This seems to happen a lot with > geographic > data, for instance. EXACTLY!!! > > If you find that increasing the stats targets improves things then this > isn't true. If you find that it doesn't then what's really needed is a > cleverer set of statistics to look for. I will be the first one to say that increasing the samples is not perfect, but it is a methodology that will help without major changes in postgres. Simply increasing the samples to a percentage of the estimated number of rows (with some upper and lower limits of course) will increase the accuracy of the "n_distinct" and "correlation" settings (at least a little bit), and that will make a huge impact with very little work. If we want to discuss improved statatistics, then we should include a standard deviation and a sliding window deviation, or something like that. Hell, maybe even FFT. The basic problem, I think, is that the sampling mechanism is more like an oscilloscope looking for large trends instead of a spectrum analyzer looking for the smaller ones. We have to be able to tell the planner that adjacent values are less random even though, as a whole, they are seemingly random. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> In this case, the behavior observed could be changed by altering the >> sample size for a table. I submit that an arbitrary fixed sample size is >> not a good base for the analyzer, but that the sample size should be >> based >> on the size of the table or some calculation of its deviation. >> > >Mark, > > Do you have any evidence that the Sample Size had anything to do > with the performance problem you're seeing? I have evidence, if you look through some of the messages in this thread, you'll see how a sample size of 1 provides enough data points to create stats the planner can use. > > I also do a lot with the complete Census/TIGER database. Cool, have any code for Mapserver? > > Every problem I have with the optimizer comes down to the > fact that the data is loaded (and ordered on disk) by > State/County FIPS codes, and then queried by zip-code > or by city name. Like this: > > Alabama36101 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 36***] > Alaska 99686 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 9] > Arizona85701 [hundreds of pages with zip's in 855**] > > Note that the zip codes are *NOT* sequential. > > The "correlation" statistic sees that the Zip codes are not > sequential; so it makes the *HORRIBLE* assumption that they > are scattered randomly across the disk. It is my theory that this is because there are too few data points with which to properly characterize the nature of the data. > > In reality, even though there's no total ordering of the > zip codes; any given zip code only exists on a couple > disk pages; so index scans would be the right choice. I totally agree. > > > But the single correlation parameter is not sufficient > to let the optimizer known this. > > No matter how large a sample size you choose, ANALYZE > will correctly see that Zip codes and State FIPS codes > are non-correlated, and the optimizer will overestimate > the # of pages an index scan will need. > I tried to create an analogy in another post, and TIGER is a perfect example of the analogy. Think of the difference between an oscilloscope and a spectrum analizer. The current sampling code works more like an oscilloscope. It assumes a fairly normalized distribution of data. Given this, it works perfectly fine. When a scope is presented with an audio signal, it looks more like gibberish showing almost no correlation. When you view it in frequency domain, as with a spectrum analyzer, you can see clear patterns in the signal. Now, fortunately, we don't need any sort of absolute visualization of the data in TIGER, we only need to see that the data has many subtle trends rather than one fairly evenly distributed one. That's why more samples works. If we could do anything, I would add more statistics to the database. A standard deviation and maybe a sliding window deviation. A standard deviation might be pretty high, were as a sliding window whould show less localized deviation. Less localized deviation whould favor index scans in. Anyway, like I said. I think the expectation that the data is fairly normalized or evenly distributed works very well for data acquired over time. It is data like TIGER that is in a multiple field order, i.e. state, zipr, zipl that has complex paterns for the secondary sorts that can't be detected with too small a sample. > > PS: I pointed out workarounds in my earlier posting > in this thread. Yes, I'm using the same TIGER data > you are. > Cool. > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 05:16:56PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> > On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 13:28:04 -0500, >> > >> > What you are saying here is that if you want more accurate statistics, >> you >> > need to sample more rows. That is true. However, the size of the >> sample >> > is essentially only dependent on the accuracy you need and not the >> size >> > of the population, for large populations. >> > >> That's nonsense. > > Huh, have you studied any statistics? To what aspects of "statistics" are your referring. I was not a math major, no, but I did have my obligatory classes as well as algorithms and so on. I've only worked in the industry for over 20 years. I've worked with statistical analysis of data on multiple projects, ranging from medical instruments, compression, encryption, and web based recommendations systems. I assume "Huh, have you studied any statistics?" was a call for qualifications. And yes, some real math major would be helpful in this discussion because clearly there is a disconnect. The basic problem with a fixed sample is that is assumes a normal distribution. If data variation is evenly distributed across a set, then a sample of sufficient size would be valid for almost any data set. That isn't what I'm saying. If the data variation is NOT uniformly distributed across the data set, the sample size has to be larger because there is "more" data. I think I can explain with a visual. I started my career as an electrical engineer and took an experimental class called "computer science." Sure, it was a long time ago, but bare with me. When you look at a sine wave on an oscilloscope, you can see it clear as day. When you look at music on the scope, you know there are many waves there, but it is difficult to make heads or tails of it. (use xmms or winamp to see for yourself) The waves change in frequency, amplitude, and duration over a very large scale. That's why you use a spectrum analyzer to go from time domain to frequency domain. In frequency domain, you can see the trends better. This is the problem we are having. Currently, the analyze.c code is assuming a very regular data set. In which case, almost any size sample would work fine. What we see when we use it to analyze complex data sets, is that it can't characterize the data well. The solution is to completely change the statistics model to handle complex and unpredictably changing trends, or, increase the sample size. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> Maybe I am missing something - ISTM that you can increase your > statistics target for those larger tables to obtain a larger (i.e. > better) sample. No one is arguing that you can't manually do things, but I am not the first to notice this. I saw the query planner doing something completely stupid and set off to discover why. Think about the person using PostgreSQL for the first time. He/she does not know about this stuff. Even if they've read the FAQs and the manual cover to cover, it will take them some time to figure out it all works together. PostgreSQL is a big system, and this is exactly why MySQL gets better marks from newbes. In this case, the behavior observed could be changed by altering the sample size for a table. I submit that an arbitrary fixed sample size is not a good base for the analyzer, but that the sample size should be based on the size of the table or some calculation of its deviation. There is no reason why old stats can't be used to create more accurate stats. Using succesive analyze operations, we could create better statistics for the planner. We can increase the sample size based on the table size. We could, I suppose, also calculate some sort of deviation statistic so that "n_distinct" can be calculated better with a smaller sample set. The basic problem, though, is that PostgreSQL performed incorrectly on a simple query after indexes were created and analyze performed. Yes, it can be corrected, that's what led me to my conclusions, but shouldn't we try to devise a better system in the future to improve PostgreSQL so it does not need this sort of tuning? > > regards > > Mark > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >> Any and all random sampling assumes a degree of uniform distribution. >> This >> is the basis of the model. It assumes that chunks of the whole will be >> representative of the whole (to some degree). This works when normal >> variations are more or less distributed uniformly. As variations and >> trends becomes less uniformly distributed, more samples are required to >> characterize it. >> >> Douglas Adams had a great device called the "Total Perspective Vortex" >> which infered the whole of the universe from a piece of fairy cake. It >> was >> a subtle play on the absurd notion that a very small sample could lead >> to >> an understanding of an infinitly larger whole. >> >> On a very basic level, why bother sampling the whole table at all? Why >> not >> check one block and infer all information from that? Because we know >> that >> isn't enough data. In a table of 4.6 million rows, can you say with any >> mathmatical certainty that a sample of 100 points can be, in any way, >> representative? >> >> Another problem with random sampling is trend analysis. Often times >> there >> are minor trends in data. Ron pointed out the lastname firstname trend. >> Although there seems to be no correlation between firstnames in the >> table, >> there are clearly groups or clusters of ordered data that is an ordering >> that is missed by too small a sample. >> >> I understand why you chose the Vitter algorithm, because it provides a >> basically sound methodology for sampling without knowledge of the size >> of >> the whole, but I think we can do better. I would suggest using the >> current >> algorithm the first time through, then adjust the number of samples [n] >> based on the previous estimate of the size of the table [N]. Each >> successive ANALYZE will become more accurate. The Vitter algorithm is >> still useful as [N] will always be an estimate. >> > > > ---(end of broadcast)--- > TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > >http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq > ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Query optimizer 8.0.1 (and 8.0)
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 13:28:04 -0500,
>
> What you are saying here is that if you want more accurate statistics, you
> need to sample more rows. That is true. However, the size of the sample
> is essentially only dependent on the accuracy you need and not the size
> of the population, for large populations.
>
That's nonsense.
If your total data size is 100 elements in a set, then a sample size of
100 elements will cover 100% of your data.
If your total data size is 10,000 elements in a set, the a sample size of
100 elements will cover 1% of your data.
In the case of the TIGER database, the base of 100 samples is about .002%
0f the data is sampled. Think about that, that is an average of 1 sample
about every 50,000 records. You could have substantial but irregular
trends in the data that may never get detected, and this is EXACTLY what
we see. If we increase the sample size (targrows), the statistics suddenly
work better.
For instance, look at the data below.
The first analyze / select from pg_stats is with an analyze of 3000
samples. The zipl and zipr columns get calculated poorly and can cause the
planner to use a table scan instead of an index scan.
The second analyze / select from the pg_stats is with an analyse of 1
samples. The zipl and zipr n_distinct values are still off by a factor of
10, but close enough for the planner to deal.
If the premise is that samples size doesn't make a difference, I think
we've proved that this is not true.
tiger=# analyze verbose rt1;
INFO: analyzing "public.rt1"
INFO: "rt1": scanned 3000 of 1527360 pages, containing 90978 live rows
and 0 dead rows; 3000 rows in sample, 46318719 estimated total rows
ANALYZE
tiger=# select * from pg_stats where tablename = 'rt1' and attname like
'zip%';
schemaname | tablename | attname | null_frac | avg_width | n_distinct |
most_common_vals |
most_common_freqs
| histogram_bounds
| correlation
+---+-+---+---++-+--++-
public | rt1 | zipl| 0.672 | 4 |960 |
{76240,52601,55746,71730,74604,92705,93117,95818} |
{0.0017,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013}
|
{1085,16652,28206,33412,43147,49428,58801,68110,77515,91340,99006} |
-0.119519
public | rt1 | zipr| 0.677 | 4 |960 |
{76240,52601,55746,71730,74604,78577,92705,93117,95818} |
{0.0017,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013,0.0013}
| {962,15613,28572,33606,43545,49428,60423,68064,77040,91340,99006} |
-0.104158
(2 rows)
Now this:
tiger=# analyze verbose rt1;
INFO: analyzing "public.rt1"
INFO: "rt1": scanned 1 of 1527360 pages, containing 303419 live rows
and 0 dead rows; 1 rows in sample, 46343004 estimated total rows
ANALYZE
tiger=# select * from pg_stats where tablename = 'rt1' and attname like
'zip%';
schemaname | tablename | attname | null_frac | avg_width | n_distinct |
most_common_vals|
most_common_freqs|
histogram_bounds | correlation
+---+-+---+---++---+-+---+-
public | rt1 | zipl|0.6807 | 4 | 2942 |
{61832,13090,17404,30907,31204,45342,47714,63050,80918,93726} |
{0.0008,0.0006,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005} |
{654,15018,28208,33870,43006,49008,59741,68803,78640,92105,99687} |
-0.137744
public | rt1 | zipr| 0.684 | 4 | 2921 |
{13090,61832,30907,31204,45342,47714,63050,70122,80918,93726} |
{0.0006,0.0006,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005,0.0005} |
{731,14824,27871,33324,42276,48895,58401,68338,78575,92105,99654} |
-0.140663
(2 rows)
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