Previously, isolationtester displayed SQL query results using some
ad-hoc code that clearly hadn't had much effort expended on it.
Field values longer than 14 characters weren't separated from
the next field, and usually caused misalignment of the columns
too. Also there was no visual separation of a query's result
from subsequent isolationtester output. This made test result
files confusing and hard to read.
To improve matters, let's use libpq's PQprint() function. Although
that's long since unused by psql, it's still plenty good enough
for the purpose here.
Like 741d7f104, back-patch to all supported branches, so that this
isn't a stumbling block for back-patching isolation test changes.
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/582362.1623798221@sss.pgh.pa.us
We've long contended with isolation test results that aren't entirely
stable. Some test scripts insert long delays to try to force stable
results, which is not terribly desirable; but other erratic failure
modes remain, causing unrepeatable buildfarm failures. I've spent a
fair amount of time trying to solve this by improving the server-side
support code, without much success: that way is fundamentally unable
to cope with diffs that stem from chance ordering of arrival of
messages from different server processes.
We can improve matters on the client side, however, by annotating
the test scripts themselves to show the desired reporting order
of events that might occur in different orders. This patch adds
three types of annotations to deal with (a) test steps that might or
might not complete their waits before the isolationtester can see them
waiting; (b) test steps in different sessions that can legitimately
complete in either order; and (c) NOTIFY messages that might arrive
before or after the completion of a step in another session. We might
need more annotation types later, but this seems to be enough to deal
with the instabilities we've seen in the buildfarm. It also lets us
get rid of all the long delays that were previously used, cutting more
than a minute off the runtime of the isolation tests.
Back-patch to all supported branches, because the buildfarm
instabilities affect all the branches, and because it seems desirable
to keep isolationtester's capabilities the same across all branches
to simplify possible future back-patching of tests.
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/327948.1623725828@sss.pgh.pa.us
If a query against an inheritance tree runs concurrently with an ALTER
TABLE that's disinheriting one of the tree members, it's possible to get
a "could not find inherited attribute" error because after obtaining lock
on the removed member, make_inh_translation_list sees that its columns
have attinhcount=0 and decides they aren't the columns it's looking for.
An ideal fix, perhaps, would avoid including such a just-removed member
table in the query at all; but there seems no way to accomplish that
without adding expensive catalog rechecks or creating a likelihood of
deadlocks. Instead, let's just drop the check on attinhcount. In this
way, a query that's included a just-disinherited child will still
succeed, which is not a completely unreasonable behavior.
This problem has existed for a long time, so back-patch to all supported
branches. Also add an isolation test verifying related behaviors.
Patch by me; the new isolation test is based on Kyotaro Horiguchi's work.
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20170626.174612.23936762.horiguchi.kyotaro@lab.ntt.co.jp
Tom Lane