Re: Assert Levels

Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> writes:
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008, Greg Stark wrote:
>> This is a good example of why running with assertions enabled on production 
>> might not be a good idea. But it's also a good example of why we should do 
>> our performance testing with assertions enabled if we can do it without 
>> invalidating the results.

> The performance impact of assertions is large enough that I don't think 
> that goal is practical.

Well, there are certain things that --enable-cassert turns on that are
outrageously expensive; notably CLOBBER_FREED_MEMORY and
MEMORY_CONTEXT_CHECKING.  It wouldn't be too unreasonable to decouple
those things somehow (with a means more accessible than editing
pg_config_manual.h).

I don't think anyone knows what the performance impact of just the
regular Asserts is; it's been too long since these other things were
stuck in there.
        regards, tom lane