Doug McNaught wrote:
>
> mlw <markw@mohawksoft.com> writes:
>
> > I noticed poor performance on Solaris, does one see this problem
> > when compiling PostgreSQL with gcc on solaris?
>
> Since it's libc that's the culprit, I would imagine so.
Thanks, that explains what I have seen.
>
> > As a suggestion, why not find the *best* version of qsort available,
> > anywhere, and always use that version on all platforms?
>
> Because qsort() is *supposed* to be optimized by the vendor for their
> platform, perhaps even written in assembler. It makes sense to trust
> the vendor except when their implementation is provably pessimized.
Perhaps *supposed* to be optimized, but, in reality, are they? Is it a
realistic expectation?
qsort() is a great sort for very random data, when data is mostly in the
correct order, it is very bad. Perhaps replacing it with an alternate sort
would improve performance in general.