Re: index creation on 7.3

Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com> writes:
> On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 17:17, Ben wrote:
> If I create an index on a table that needs to be vacuumed in 7.3, will the
> dead rows get indexed as well?

> Yes.  I think.  I'm pretty sure that's still true in 8.2. as well.  The
> way indexes work is that the index points to the oldest version of a
> tuple in existence, said tuple which then points to the next newer
> version and so on.

IIRC, CREATE INDEX will ignore tuples that are "definitely dead", ie,
too old to be visible to any open transaction.  It *will* (and must)
index tuples that are recently dead but might still be visible to some
open transaction.

            regards, tom lane