Re: [HACKERS] Re: Faster CREATE DATABASE by delaying fsync (was 8.4.1 ubuntu karmic slow createdb)

On Tuesday 02 February 2010 19:14:40 Robert Haas wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 12:50 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> > Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> writes:
> >> On Tuesday 02 February 2010 18:36:12 Robert Haas wrote:
> >>> I took a look at this patch today and I agree with Tom that
> >>> pg_fsync_start() is a very confusing name.  I don't know what the
> >>> right name is, but this doesn't fsync so I don't think it shuld have
> >>> fsync in the name.  Maybe something like pg_advise_abandon() or
> >>> pg_abandon_cache().  The current name is really wishful thinking:
> >>> you're hoping that it will make the kernel start the fsync, but it
> >>> might not.  I think pg_start_data_flush() is similarly optimistic.
> >>
> >> What about: pg_fsync_prepare().
> >
> > prepare_for_fsync()?
>
> It still seems mis-descriptive to me.  Couldn't the same routine be
> used simply to abandon undirtied data that we no longer care about
> caching?
For now it could - but it very well might be converted to sync_file_range or
similar, which would have different "sideeffects".

As the potential code duplication is rather small I would prefer to describe
the prime effect not the sideeffects...

Andres