Per discussion, we should provide such functions to replace the lost
ability to discover AM properties by inspecting pg_am (cf commit
65c5fcd35). The added functionality is also meant to displace any code
that was looking directly at pg_index.indoption, since we'd rather not
believe that the bit meanings in that field are part of any client API
contract.
As future-proofing, define the SQL API to not assume that properties that
are currently AM-wide or index-wide will remain so unless they logically
must be; instead, expose them only when inquiring about a specific index
or even specific index column. Also provide the ability for an index
AM to override the behavior.
In passing, document pg_am.amtype, overlooked in commit 473b93287.
Andrew Gierth, with kibitzing by me and others
Discussion: <87mvl5on7n.fsf@news-spur.riddles.org.uk>
This enables external code to create access methods. This is useful so
that extensions can add their own access methods which can be formally
tracked for dependencies, so that DROP operates correctly. Also, having
explicit support makes pg_dump work correctly.
Currently only index AMs are supported, but we expect different types to
be added in the future.
Authors: Alexander Korotkov, Petr Jelínek
Reviewed-By: Teodor Sigaev, Petr Jelínek, Jim Nasby
Commitfest-URL: https://commitfest.postgresql.org/9/353/
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAPpHfdsXwZmojm6Dx+TJnpYk27kT4o7Ri6X_4OSWcByu1Rm+VA@mail.gmail.com
This patch reduces pg_am to just two columns, a name and a handler
function. All the data formerly obtained from pg_am is now provided
in a C struct returned by the handler function. This is similar to
the designs we've adopted for FDWs and tablesample methods. There
are multiple advantages. For one, the index AM's support functions
are now simple C functions, making them faster to call and much less
error-prone, since the C compiler can now check function signatures.
For another, this will make it far more practical to define index access
methods in installable extensions.
A disadvantage is that SQL-level code can no longer see attributes
of index AMs; in particular, some of the crosschecks in the opr_sanity
regression test are no longer possible from SQL. We've addressed that
by adding a facility for the index AM to perform such checks instead.
(Much more could be done in that line, but for now we're content if the
amvalidate functions more or less replace what opr_sanity used to do.)
We might also want to expose some sort of reporting functionality, but
this patch doesn't do that.
Alexander Korotkov, reviewed by Petr Jelínek, and rather heavily
editorialized on by me.
Bruce Momjian
Tom Lane
Alvaro Herrera