Also performed an initial run through of upgrading our Copyright date to
extend to 2005 ... first run here was very simple ... change everything
where: grep 1996-2004 && the word 'Copyright' ... scanned through the
generated list with 'less' first, and after, to make sure that I only
picked up the right entries ...
1. Solve the problem of not having TOAST references hiding inside composite
values by establishing the rule that toasting only goes one level deep:
a tuple can contain toasted fields, but a composite-type datum that is
to be inserted into a tuple cannot. Enforcing this in heap_formtuple
is relatively cheap and it avoids a large increase in the cost of running
the tuptoaster during final storage of a row.
2. Fix some interesting problems in expansion of inherited queries that
reference whole-row variables. We never really did this correctly before,
but it's now relatively painless to solve by expanding the parent's
whole-row Var into a RowExpr() selecting the proper columns from the
child.
If you dike out the preventive check in CheckAttributeType(),
composite-type columns now seem to actually work. However, we surely
cannot ship them like this --- without I/O for composite types, you
can't get pg_dump to dump tables containing them. So a little more
work still to do.
In the past, we used a 'Lispy' linked list implementation: a "list" was
merely a pointer to the head node of the list. The problem with that
design is that it makes lappend() and length() linear time. This patch
fixes that problem (and others) by maintaining a count of the list
length and a pointer to the tail node along with each head node pointer.
A "list" is now a pointer to a structure containing some meta-data
about the list; the head and tail pointers in that structure refer
to ListCell structures that maintain the actual linked list of nodes.
The function names of the list API have also been changed to, I hope,
be more logically consistent. By default, the old function names are
still available; they will be disabled-by-default once the rest of
the tree has been updated to use the new API names.
and hash bucket-size estimation. Issue has been there awhile but is more
critical in 7.4 because it affects varchar columns. Per report from
Greg Stark.
node emits only those vars that are actually needed above it in the
plan tree. (There were comments in the code suggesting that this was
done at some point in the dim past, but for a long time we have just
made join nodes emit everything that either input emitted.) Aside from
being marginally more efficient, this fixes the problem noted by Peter
Eisentraut where a join above an IN-implemented-as-join might fail,
because the subplan targetlist constructed in the latter case didn't
meet the expectation of including everything.
Along the way, fix some places that were O(N^2) in the targetlist
length. This is not all the trouble spots for wide queries by any
means, but it's a step forward.
of an index can now be a computed expression instead of a simple variable.
Restrictions on expressions are the same as for predicates (only immutable
functions, no sub-selects). This fixes problems recently introduced with
inlining SQL functions, because the inlining transformation is applied to
both expression trees so the planner can still match them up. Along the
way, improve efficiency of handling index predicates (both predicates and
index expressions are now cached by the relcache) and fix 7.3 oversight
that didn't record dependencies of predicate expressions.
Without this fix, CVS tip dumps core when running the regression tests
with geqo_threshold = 2. I would think that a similar patch might be
needed in 7.3, but cannot duplicate the failure in that branch --- so
for now, leave well enough alone.
the outer query. (The implementation is a bit klugy, but it would take
nontrivial restructuring to make it nicer, which this is probably not
worth.) This avoids unnecessary sort steps in examples like
SELECT foo,count(*) FROM (SELECT ... ORDER BY foo,bar) sub GROUP BY foo
which means there is now a reasonable technique for controlling the
order of inputs to custom aggregates, even in the grouping case.
of known-equal expressions includes any constant expressions (including
Params from outer queries), we actively suppress any 'var = var'
clauses that are or could be deduced from the set, generating only the
deducible 'var = const' clauses instead. The idea here is to push down
the restrictions implied by the equality set to base relations whenever
possible. Once we have applied the 'var = const' clauses, the 'var = var'
clauses are redundant, and should be suppressed both to save work at
execution and to avoid double-counting restrictivity.
containing a volatile function), rather than only on 'Var = Var' clauses
as before. This makes it practical to do flatten_join_alias_vars at the
start of planning, which in turn eliminates a bunch of klugery inside the
planner to deal with alias vars. As a free side effect, we now detect
implied equality of non-Var expressions; for example in
SELECT ... WHERE a.x = b.y and b.y = 42
we will deduce a.x = 42 and use that as a restriction qual on a. Also,
we can remove the restriction introduced 12/5/02 to prevent pullup of
subqueries whose targetlists contain sublinks.
Still TODO: make statistical estimation routines in selfuncs.c and costsize.c
smarter about expressions that are more complex than plain Vars. The need
for this is considerably greater now that we have to be able to estimate
the suitability of merge and hash join techniques on such expressions.
so that all executable expression nodes inherit from a common supertype
Expr. This is somewhat of an exercise in code purity rather than any
real functional advance, but getting rid of the extra Oper or Func node
formerly used in each operator or function call should provide at least
a little space and speed improvement.
initdb forced by changes in stored-rules representation.
to be flexible about assignment casts without introducing ambiguity in
operator/function resolution. Introduce a well-defined promotion hierarchy
for numeric datatypes (int2->int4->int8->numeric->float4->float8).
Change make_const to initially label numeric literals as int4, int8, or
numeric (never float8 anymore).
Explicitly mark Func and RelabelType nodes to indicate whether they came
from a function call, explicit cast, or implicit cast; use this to do
reverse-listing more accurately and without so many heuristics.
Explicit casts to char, varchar, bit, varbit will truncate or pad without
raising an error (the pre-7.2 behavior), while assigning to a column without
any explicit cast will still raise an error for wrong-length data like 7.3.
This more nearly follows the SQL spec than 7.2 behavior (we should be
reporting a 'completion condition' in the explicit-cast cases, but we have
no mechanism for that, so just do silent truncation).
Fix some problems with enforcement of typmod for array elements;
it didn't work at all in 'UPDATE ... SET array[n] = foo', for example.
Provide a generalized array_length_coerce() function to replace the
specialized per-array-type functions that used to be needed (and were
missing for NUMERIC as well as all the datetime types).
Add missing conversions int8<->float4, text<->numeric, oid<->int8.
initdb forced.
returns-set boolean field in Func and Oper nodes. This allows cleaner,
more reliable tests for expressions returning sets in the planner and
parser. For example, a WHERE clause returning a set is now detected
and complained of in the parser, not only at runtime.
now has an RTE of its own, and references to its outputs now are Vars
referencing the JOIN RTE, rather than CASE-expressions. This allows
reverse-listing in ruleutils.c to use the correct alias easily, rather
than painfully reverse-engineering the alias namespace as it used to do.
Also, nested FULL JOINs work correctly, because the result of the inner
joins are simple Vars that the planner can cope with. This fixes a bug
reported a couple times now, notably by Tatsuo on 18-Nov-01. The alias
Vars are expanded into COALESCE expressions where needed at the very end
of planning, rather than during parsing.
Also, beginnings of support for showing plan qualifier expressions in
EXPLAIN. There are probably still cases that need work.
initdb forced due to change of stored-rule representation.
clauses per path key. Indeed, we *must* do so or we will be unable to
form a valid plan for FULL JOIN with overlapping join conditions, eg
select * from a full join b on
a.v1 = b.v1 and a.v2 = b.v2 and a.v1 = b.v2.
clause being added to a particular restriction-clause list is redundant
with those already in the list. This avoids useless work at runtime,
and (perhaps more importantly) keeps the selectivity estimation routines
from generating too-small estimates of numbers of output rows.
Also some minor improvements in OPTIMIZER_DEBUG displays.
comparison does not consider paths different when they differ only in
uninteresting aspects of sort order. (We had a special case of this
consideration for indexscans already, but generalize it to apply to
ordered join paths too.) Be stricter about what is a canonical pathkey
to allow faster pathkey comparison. Cache canonical pathkeys and
dispersion stats for left and right sides of a RestrictInfo's clause,
to avoid repeated computation. Total speedup will depend on number of
tables in a query, but I see about 4x speedup of planning phase for
a sample seven-table query.
joins, and clean things up a good deal at the same time. Append plan node
no longer hacks on rangetable at runtime --- instead, all child tables are
given their own RT entries during planning. Concept of multiple target
tables pushed up into execMain, replacing bug-prone implementation within
nodeAppend. Planner now supports generating Append plans for inheritance
sets either at the top of the plan (the old way) or at the bottom. Expanding
at the bottom is appropriate for tables used as sources, since they may
appear inside an outer join; but we must still expand at the top when the
target of an UPDATE or DELETE is an inheritance set, because we actually need
a different targetlist and junkfilter for each target table in that case.
Fortunately a target table can't be inside an outer join... Bizarre mutual
recursion between union_planner and prepunion.c is gone --- in fact,
union_planner doesn't really have much to do with union queries anymore,
so I renamed it grouping_planner.
(Don't forget that an alias is required.) Views reimplemented as expanding
to subselect-in-FROM. Grouping, aggregates, DISTINCT in views actually
work now (he says optimistically). No UNION support in subselects/views
yet, but I have some ideas about that. Rule-related permissions checking
moved out of rewriter and into executor.
INITDB REQUIRED!
from Param nodes, per discussion a few days ago on pghackers. Add new
expression node type FieldSelect that implements the functionality where
it's actually needed. Clean up some other unused fields in Func nodes
as well.
NOTE: initdb forced due to change in stored expression trees for rules.
mergejoinable qual clauses, and add them to the query quals. For
example, WHERE a = b AND b = c will cause us to add AND a = c.
This is necessary to ensure that it's safe to use these variables
as interchangeable sort keys, which is something 7.0 knows how to do.
Should provide a useful improvement in planning ability, too.
accesses versus sequential accesses, a (very crude) estimate of the
effects of caching on random page accesses, and cost to evaluate WHERE-
clause expressions. Export critical parameters for this model as SET
variables. Also, create SET variables for the planner's enable flags
(enable_seqscan, enable_indexscan, etc) so that these can be controlled
more conveniently than via PGOPTIONS.
Planner now estimates both startup cost (cost before retrieving
first tuple) and total cost of each path, so it can optimize queries
with LIMIT on a reasonable basis by interpolating between these costs.
Same facility is a win for EXISTS(...) subqueries and some other cases.
Redesign pathkey representation to achieve a major speedup in planning
(I saw as much as 5X on a 10-way join); also minor changes in planner
to reduce memory consumption by recycling discarded Path nodes and
not constructing unnecessary lists.
Minor cleanups to display more-plausible costs in some cases in
EXPLAIN output.
Initdb forced by change in interface to index cost estimation
functions.
and fix_opids processing to a single recursive pass over the plan tree
executed at the very tail end of planning, rather than haphazardly here
and there at different places. Now that tlist Vars do not get modified
until the very end, it's possible to get rid of the klugy var_equal and
match_varid partial-matching routines, and just use plain equal()
throughout the optimizer. This is a step towards allowing merge and
hash joins to be done on expressions instead of only Vars ...
sort order down into planner, instead of handling it only at the very top
level of the planner. This fixes many things. An explicit sort is now
avoided if there is a cheaper alternative (typically an indexscan) not
only for ORDER BY, but also for the internal sort of GROUP BY. It works
even when there is no other reason (such as a WHERE condition) to consider
the indexscan. It works for indexes on functions. It works for indexes
on functions, backwards. It's just so cool...
CAUTION: I have changed the representation of SortClause nodes, therefore
THIS UPDATE BREAKS STORED RULES. You will need to initdb.
Tom Lane
PostgreSQL Daemon
Bruce Momjian
Neil Conway