postgresql/doc/src/sgml/pgsurgery.sgml
Tom Lane 836af9756b Remove trailing whitespace from *.sgml files.
Historically we've been lax about this, but seeing that we're not
lax in C files, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to be so
in the documentation.  Remove the existing occurrences (mostly
though not entirely in copied-n-pasted psql output), and modify
.gitattributes so that "git diff --check" will warn about future
cases.

While at it, add *.pm to the set of extensions .gitattributes
knows about, and remove some obsolete entries for files that
we don't have in the tree anymore.

Per followup discussion of commit 5a892c9b1.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/E1nfcV1-000kOR-E5@gemulon.postgresql.org
2022-04-20 11:04:49 -04:00

108 lines
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<!-- doc/src/sgml/pgsurgery.sgml -->
<sect1 id="pgsurgery" xreflabel="pg_surgery">
<title>pg_surgery</title>
<indexterm zone="pgsurgery">
<primary>pg_surgery</primary>
</indexterm>
<para>
The <filename>pg_surgery</filename> module provides various functions to
perform surgery on a damaged relation. These functions are unsafe by design
and using them may corrupt (or further corrupt) your database. For example,
these functions can easily be used to make a table inconsistent with its
own indexes, to cause <literal>UNIQUE</literal> or
<literal>FOREIGN KEY</literal> constraint violations, or even to make
tuples visible which, when read, will cause a database server crash.
They should be used with great caution and only as a last resort.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>Functions</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<function>heap_force_kill(regclass, tid[]) returns void</function>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
<function>heap_force_kill</function> marks <quote>used</quote> line
pointers as <quote>dead</quote> without examining the tuples. The
intended use of this function is to forcibly remove tuples that are not
otherwise accessible. For example:
<programlisting>
test=&gt; select * from t1 where ctid = '(0, 1)';
ERROR: could not access status of transaction 4007513275
DETAIL: Could not open file "pg_xact/0EED": No such file or directory.
test=# select heap_force_kill('t1'::regclass, ARRAY['(0, 1)']::tid[]);
heap_force_kill
-----------------
(1 row)
test=# select * from t1 where ctid = '(0, 1)';
(0 rows)
</programlisting>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<function>heap_force_freeze(regclass, tid[]) returns void</function>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
<function>heap_force_freeze</function> marks tuples as frozen without
examining the tuple data. The intended use of this function is to
make accessible tuples which are inaccessible due to corrupted
visibility information, or which prevent the table from being
successfully vacuumed due to corrupted visibility information.
For example:
<programlisting>
test=&gt; vacuum t1;
ERROR: found xmin 507 from before relfrozenxid 515
CONTEXT: while scanning block 0 of relation "public.t1"
test=# select ctid from t1 where xmin = 507;
ctid
-------
(0,3)
(1 row)
test=# select heap_force_freeze('t1'::regclass, ARRAY['(0, 3)']::tid[]);
heap_force_freeze
-------------------
(1 row)
test=# select ctid from t1 where xmin = 2;
ctid
-------
(0,3)
(1 row)
</programlisting>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Authors</title>
<para>
Ashutosh Sharma <email>ashu.coek88@gmail.com</email>
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>