There are still some alignment-related failures in the buildfarm,
which might or might not be able to be fixed quickly, but I've also
just realized that it increased the size of many WAL records by 4 bytes
because a block reference contains a RelFileLocator. The effect of that
hasn't been studied or discussed, so revert for now.
RelFileNumbers are now assigned using a separate counter, instead of
being assigned from the OID counter. This counter never wraps around:
if all 2^56 possible RelFileNumbers are used, an internal error
occurs. As the cluster is limited to 2^64 total bytes of WAL, this
limitation should not cause a problem in practice.
If the counter were 64 bits wide rather than 56 bits wide, we would
need to increase the width of the BufferTag, which might adversely
impact buffer lookup performance. Also, this lets us use bigint for
pg_class.relfilenode and other places where these values are exposed
at the SQL level without worrying about overflow.
This should remove the need to keep "tombstone" files around until
the next checkpoint when relations are removed. We do that to keep
RelFileNumbers from being recycled, but now that won't happen
anyway. However, this patch doesn't actually change anything in
this area; it just makes it possible for a future patch to do so.
Dilip Kumar, based on an idea from Andres Freund, who also reviewed
some earlier versions of the patch. Further review and some
wordsmithing by me. Also reviewed at various points by Ashutosh
Sharma, Vignesh C, Amul Sul, Álvaro Herrera, and Tom Lane.
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CA+Tgmobp7+7kmi4gkq7Y+4AM9fTvL+O1oQ4-5gFTT+6Ng-dQ=g@mail.gmail.com
We have been using the term RelFileNode to refer to either (1) the
integer that is used to name the sequence of files for a certain relation
within the directory set aside for that tablespace/database combination;
or (2) that value plus the OIDs of the tablespace and database; or
occasionally (3) the whole series of files created for a relation
based on those values. Using the same name for more than one thing is
confusing.
Replace RelFileNode with RelFileNumber when we're talking about just the
single number, i.e. (1) from above, and with RelFileLocator when we're
talking about all the things that are needed to locate a relation's files
on disk, i.e. (2) from above. In the places where we refer to (3) as
a relfilenode, instead refer to "relation storage".
Since there is a ton of SQL code in the world that knows about
pg_class.relfilenode, don't change the name of that column, or of other
SQL-facing things that derive their name from it.
On the other hand, do adjust closely-related internal terminology. For
example, the structure member names dbNode and spcNode appear to be
derived from the fact that the structure itself was called RelFileNode,
so change those to dbOid and spcOid. Likewise, various variables with
names like rnode and relnode get renamed appropriately, according to
how they're being used in context.
Hopefully, this is clearer than before. It is also preparation for
future patches that intend to widen the relfilenumber fields from its
current width of 32 bits. Variables that store a relfilenumber are now
declared as type RelFileNumber rather than type Oid; right now, these
are the same, but that can now more easily be changed.
Dilip Kumar, per an idea from me. Reviewed also by Andres Freund.
I fixed some whitespace issues, changed a couple of words in a
comment, and made one other minor correction.
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CA+TgmoamOtXbVAQf9hWFzonUo6bhhjS6toZQd7HZ-pmojtAmag@mail.gmail.com
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CA+Tgmobp7+7kmi4gkq7Y+4AM9fTvL+O1oQ4-5gFTT+6Ng-dQ=g@mail.gmail.com
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CAFiTN-vTe79M8uDH1yprOU64MNFE+R3ODRuA+JWf27JbhY4hJw@mail.gmail.com
Bruce Momjian
Robert Haas