Re: More info

Tim Perdue <tperdue@valinux.com> writes:
> Any idea why 6.5.3 would have created tens of thousands of files like
> these in the /data/base/db_geocrawler/ directory?

Funny you should mention that, because I was just in process of testing
a fix when your mail came in.  The low-level routine that accesses a
particular segment of a multi-segment relation develops a serious case
of Sorcerer's Apprentice syndrome if higher levels hand it a silly block
number.  If you tell it to access, say, block# 2 billion, it will
merrily start creating empty segment files till it gets to the segment
number that corresponds to that block number.

The routine does need to be able to create *one* new segment, in case it
is asked to access the block just past the current EOF (when EOF is at a
segment boundary) ... but not more than one.  As of current sources, it
knows not to do more.

This bug has been known for a while.  It doesn't directly answer your
problem though, since the real issue is "what generated the silly block
number, and why"?

I can't quite resist the temptation to suggest that you should be
running 7.0.2 ...
        regards, tom lane