Re: Diagnostic functions

Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Heikki Linnakangas wrote:
>> Here's an update of Simon's Heap Page Diagnostic Functions. I now
>> consider it ready to commit.
> 
> How is this better than pg_filedump?

It's handy to be able to inspect pages from within a live database. The 
new functions work through shared_buffers, so you can see changes 
without having to issue a checkpoint to flush them to disk. pg_filedump 
takes a filename as argument, the new function takes relation name.

Having them as functions also allows you to do more advanced queries 
like "... WHERE (t_infomask & 1) <> 0 " to show tuples with a null bitmap.

> "diagnostics" is an awfully general name, too.

We already played the name game on hackers. My original suggestion was 
"pgforensics". "pgdiagfuncs" and "pginspect" were also suggested, among 
others. I'm still open to suggestions, though. Have any?

-- 
   Heikki Linnakangas
   EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com