On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 2:19 PM Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> wrote:
itemid.h introduces the struct ItemIdData as follows:
/* * An item pointer (also called line pointer) on a buffer page
Meanwhile, itemptr.h introduces the struct ItemPointerData as follows:
/* * ItemPointer: * * This is a pointer to an item within a disk page of a known file * (for example, a cross-link from an index to its parent table).
It doesn't seem reasonable to assume that you should know the difference based on context. The two concepts are closely related. An ItemPointerData points to a block, as well as the, uh, item pointer within that block.
This ambiguity is avoidable, and should be avoided.
Agree.
ISTM that the least confusing way of removing the ambiguity would be to no longer refer to ItemIds as item pointers, without changing anything else.
How about we rename ItemPointerData to TupleIdentifier or ItemIdentifier instead and leave ItemPointer or Item confined to AM term, where item can be tuple, datum or anything else ?