Re: temporary tables, indexes, and query plans

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Jon Nelson <jnelson+pgsql@jamponi.net> writes:
>> OK. This is a highly distilled example that shows the behavior.
>
>> BEGIN;
>> CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE foo AS SELECT x AS A, chr(x % 75 + 32) AS b,
>> ''::text AS c from generate_series(1,500) AS x;
>> UPDATE foo SET c = 'foo' WHERE b = 'A' ;
>> CREATE INDEX foo_b_idx on foo (b);
>> [ and the rest of the transaction can't use that index ]
>
> OK, this is an artifact of the "HOT update" optimization.  Before
> creating the index, you did updates on the table that would have been
> executed differently if the index had existed.  When the index does get
> created, its entries for those updates are incomplete, so the index
> can't be used in transactions that could in principle see the unmodified
> rows.

Is the "in principle" here because there might be an open snapshot
other than the one under which CREATE INDEX is running, like a cursor?

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
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