> On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 09:57:12AM -0500, Mark Woodward wrote:
>> > In most practical situations, I think
>> > exceeding work_mem is really the best solution, as long as it's not
>> > by more than 10x or 100x. It's when the estimate is off by many
>> > orders of magnitude that you've got a problem. Running out of memory
>> > is not necessarily the worst response ... as long as the system
>> doesn't
>> > kill the process in response to that.
>>
>> I don't agree with you here. Many PostgreSQL installations use
>> PostgreSQL
>> as part of a larger whole. Adjusting "work_mem" should give the admin
>> some
>> control over the memory footprint of the system. It is documented as the
>> limit a specific function path will use before spilling to disk.
>
> And even when PostgreSQL has the server all to itself, having a hashagg
> spill to disk is *way* better than pushing the machine into a swap
> storm. At least if you spill the hashagg you only have one backend
> running at a snail's pace; a swap storm means next to nothing gets done.
>
>> This was/is an example of where the behavior of PostgreSQL is clearly
>> unacceptable. OK, yes, this problem goes away with an ANALYZE, but it
>> isn't clear how anyone could have known this, and unexpected behavior is
>> bad in any product.
>
> Care to submit a documentation patch before releases are bundled (I
> think on Sunday?) At least then people would be aware that work_mem is
> just a suggestion to hash_aggs. I'd do a patch myself but I doubt I'll
> have time before the release. :(
I would be glad too. What's the process?