Re: How do I bulk insert to a table without affecting read performance on that table?

>>> On Sat, Jan 26, 2008 at  7:39 AM, in message
<dcc563d10801260539r33c08e45o1932b5c6f2ac2907@mail.gmail.com>, "Scott Marlowe"
<scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 26, 2008 5:42 AM, growse <nabble@growse.com> wrote:
>> Scott Marlowe-2 wrote:
>> > Can you import to another table then
>> >
>> > begin;
>> > alter table realtable rename to garbage;
>> > alter table loadtable rename to realtable;
>> > commit;
>> >
>> > ?
>>
>> This is a possibility. My question on this is that would an ALTER TABLE real
>> RENAME TO garbage be faster than a DROP TABLE real?
>
> I don't know.  They're both pretty fast.  I'd do a test, with parallel
> contention on the table and see.

We do something similar (using DROP TABLE) on a weekly cycle.
We get occasional errors, even with the database transaction.
I wonder whether we might dodge them by using the rename, and
then dropping the old table after a brief delay.

-Kevin