Re: Statistics Import and Export

Greetings,

* Corey Huinker (corey.huinker@gmail.com) wrote:
> > > One persistent problem is that there is no _safe equivalent to ARRAY_IN,
> > so
> > > that can always fail on us, though it should only do so if the string
> > > passed in wasn't a valid array input format, or the values in the array
> > > can't coerce to the attribute's basetype.
> >
> > That would happen before we even get to being called and there's not
> > much to do about it anyway.
>
> Not sure I follow you here. the ARRAY_IN function calls happen once for
> every non-null stavaluesN parameter, and it's done inside the function
> because the result type could be the base type for a domain/array type, or
> could be the type itself. I suppose we could move that determination to the
> caller, but then we'd need to call get_base_element_type() inside a client,
> and that seems wrong if it's even possible.

Ah, yeah, ok, I see what you're saying here and sure, there's a risk
those might ERROR too, but that's outright invalid data then as opposed
to a NULL getting passed in.

> > > Or one compound command
> > >
> > >     SELECT pg_set_relation_stats(t.oid, ...)
> > >          pg_set_attribute_stats(t.oid, 'id'::name, ...),
> > >          pg_set_attribute_stats(t.oid, 'last_name'::name, ...),
> > >          ...
> > >     FROM (VALUES('foo.bar'::regclass)) AS t(oid);
> > >
> > > The second one has the feature that if any one attribute fails, then the
> > > whole update fails, except, of course, for the in-place update of
> > pg_class.
> > > This avoids having an explicit transaction block, but we could get that
> > > back by having restore wrap the list of commands in a transaction block
> > > (and adding the explicit lock commands) when it is safe to do so.
> >
> > Hm, I like this approach as it should essentially give us the
> > transaction block we had been talking about wanting but without needing
> > to explicitly do a begin/commit, which would add in some annoying
> > complications.  This would hopefully also reduce the locking concern
> > mentioned previously, since we'd get the lock needed in the first
> > function call and then the others would be able to just see that we've
> > already got the lock pretty quickly.
>
> True, we'd get the lock needed in the first function call, but wouldn't we
> also release that very lock before the subsequent call? Obviously we'd be
> shrinking the window in which another process could get in line and take a
> superior lock, and the universe of other processes that would even want a
> lock that blocks us is nil in the case of an upgrade, identical to existing
> behavior in the case of an FDW ANALYZE, and perfectly fine in the case of
> someone tinkering with stats.

No, we should be keeping the lock until the end of the transaction
(which in this case would be just the one statement, but it would be the
whole statement and all of the calls in it).  See analyze.c:268 or
so, where we call relation_close(onerel, NoLock); meaning we're closing
the relation but we're *not* releasing the lock on it- it'll get
released at the end of the transaction.

Thanks!

Stephen