Re: [SQL] index file's growing big

Uh, why not just "vacuum" the table?

You want to do this periodically anyway, as Postgres does not re-use TABLE
entries either, and the table file itself will grow without bound if you
don't do this once in a while.

Further, if the tables are large you want to use "vacuum analyze" to reorder
the indices in a fashion that makes queries more efficient.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl@denninger.net)  Web: http://childrens-justice.org
Isn't it time we started putting KIDS first?  See the above URL for
a plan to do exactly that!


On Mon, Mar 06, 2000 at 10:24:33AM -0600, Ross J. Reedstrom wrote:
> Zoltan - 
> It sounds like this is a very active table in you app, with lots of
> inserts and deletes, right? Basically what's happening is that deletes
> from the underlying table don't remove entries from the index file,
> just marks them unused. And inserts add a new record at the end.
> 
> This monotonic growth of index files is a known problem. I assume you're
> using v. 6.5.3 or earlier: I believe the current 7.0 beta will reuse
> index file entries, rather than append them, although it still doesn't
> 'vacuum' them of unused entries, if I understand correctly.
> 
> The dump->reload solves the problem for you by rebuilding the index. So,
> rather than dumping the whole table, just drop and rebuild the index in
> question. This can still take a long time if it's a big table, but my
> guess is that it'll work for you.
> 
> Ross
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 06, 2000 at 12:23:29PM +0100, zoltan.sebestyen@netvisor.hu wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> >  I wrote a web+commandline based package with PostgreSQL database backend.
> > My problem is that as time goes by the index file grows to a huge size
> > [80Mb]. If I dump and then reload it the database in question I'll get the
> > very same data with a quite small index file. So, there's no inconsistency
> > or corrupt database, but it's still annoying that I must handle manually.
> >  What I think is tha the command-line app I wrote for populating the
> > database uses some wrong strategy, I mean there's no erroneous SQL phares,
> > just may be it uses wrong tactics that's why it grows the index file to a
> > quite big size.
> > 
> >  Any ideas?
> > 
> > > Zoltan Sebestyen
> > > NETvisor Kft
> > > 1111 Muegyetem rkpt.9. Fsz.8.
> > > Budapest, Hungary.
> > > Fax: (+36-1) 463-4396
> > > Tel: (+36-1) 463-4392, 463-4393
> > > 
> > > "Programming is an art, not a science,
> > >                and not all programmers are Picassos."
> > > 
> > > 
> >  <<Sebestyén Zoltán.vcf>> 
> 
> 
> 
> ************
>