On Thu, 12 Sep 2019 at 19:11, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 5:31 AM Tomas Vondra
> <tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> > I don't see how the current API could do that transparently - it does
> > track the files, but the user only gets a file descriptor. With just a
> > file descriptor, how could the code know to do reopen/seek when it's going
> > just through the regular fopen/fclose?
> >
> > Anyway, I agree we need to do something, to fix this corner case (many
> > serialized in-progress transactions). ISTM we have two options - either do
> > something in the context of reorderbuffer.c, or extend the transient file
> > API somehow. I'd say the second option is the right thing going forward,
> > because it does allow doing it transparently and without leaking details
> > about maxAllocatedDescs etc. There are two issues, though - it does
> > require changes / extensions to the API, and it's not backpatchable.
> >
> > So maybe we should start with the localized fix in reorderbuffer, and I
> > agree tracking offset seems reasonable.
>
> We've already got code that knows how to track this sort of thing.
You mean tracking excess kernel fds right ? Yeah, we can use VFDs so
that excess fds are automatically closed. But Alvaro seems to be
talking in context of tracking of file seek position. VFD does not
have a mechanism to track file offsets if one of the vfd cached file
is closed and reopened. Robert, are you suggesting to add this
capability to VFD ? I agree that we could do it, but for
back-patching, offhand I couldn't think of a simpler way.
--
Thanks,
-Amit Khandekar
EnterpriseDB Corporation
The Postgres Database Company