(current as of a few hours ago.)
This patch:
1. Adds PG_GETARG_xxx_P_SLICE() macros and associated support routines.
2. Adds routines in src/backend/access/tuptoaster.c for fetching only
necessary chunks of a toasted value. (Modelled on latest changes to
assume chunks are returned in order).
3. Amends text_substr and bytea_substr to use new methods. It now
handles multibyte cases -and should still lead to a performance
improvement in the multibyte case where the substring is near the
beginning of the string.
4. Added new command: ALTER TABLE tabname ALTER COLUMN colname SET
STORAGE {PLAIN | EXTERNAL | EXTENDED | MAIN} to parser and documented in
alter-table.sgml. (NB I used ColId as the item type for the storage
mode string, rather than a new production - I hope this makes sense!).
All this does is sets attstorage for the specified column.
4. AlterTableAlterColumnStatistics is now AlterTableAlterColumnFlags and
handles both statistics and storage (it uses the subtype code to
distinguish). The previous version of my patch also re-arranged other
code in backend/commands/command.c but I have dropped that from this
patch.(I plan to return to it separately).
5. Documented new macros (and also the PG_GETARG_xxx_P_COPY macros) in
xfunc.sgml. ref/alter_table.sgml also contains documentation for ALTER
COLUMN SET STORAGE.
John Gray
a separate statement (though it can still be invoked as part of VACUUM, too).
pg_statistic redesigned to be more flexible about what statistics are
stored. ANALYZE now collects a list of several of the most common values,
not just one, plus a histogram (not just the min and max values). Random
sampling is used to make the process reasonably fast even on very large
tables. The number of values and histogram bins collected is now
user-settable via an ALTER TABLE command.
There is more still to do; the new stats are not being used everywhere
they could be in the planner. But the remaining changes for this project
should be localized, and the behavior is already better than before.
A not-very-related change is that sorting now makes use of btree comparison
routines if it can find one, rather than invoking '<' twice.
compressed storage works perfectly well. Might as well have a coherent
strategy for applying it, rather than the haphazard store-what-you-get
approach that was in the code before. The strategy I've set up here is
to attempt compression of any compressible index value exceeding
BLCKSZ/16, or about 500 bytes by default.
trying to toast tuples inserted into toast tables! Fix is two-pronged:
first, ensure all columns of a toast table are marked attstorage='p',
and second, alter the target chunk size so that it's less than the
threshold for trying to toast a tuple. (Code tried to do that but the
expression was wrong.) A few cosmetic cleanups in tuptoaster too.
NOTE: initdb forced due to change in toaster chunk-size.
Don't go through pg_exec_query_dest(), but directly to the execution
routines. Also, extend parameter lists so that there's no need to
change the global setting of allowSystemTableMods, a hack that was
certain to cause trouble in the event of any error.
Bruce Momjian
Tom Lane
Jan Wieck