Hannu Krosing <hannu@tm.ee> writes:
> Could I avoid having a transaction at all?
Not really; too much of the database access infrastructure is tied to
transaction stuff ... even facilities as basic as memory management.
> As VACUUM is not "transactional" in the sense that it does not change
> anything visible to users ever, can't be undone by rollback, etc... ,
> could it be possible to create enough "transaction-like" environment for
> it to really run outside of transactions. Perhaps just advancing
> oldestXmin at certain intervals ?
I wonder whether you could avoid advertising the VACUUM's XID in PGPROC.
Not sure that this can work, but it would be a lot simpler than stopping
and starting transactions ...
regards, tom lane