Re: unlogged tables vs. GIST

On 2013-01-15 20:58:00 +0200, Heikki Linnakangas wrote:
> On 15.01.2013 20:48, Tom Lane wrote:
> >Robert Haas<robertmhaas@gmail.com>  writes:
> >>On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Heikki Linnakangas
> >><hlinnakangas@vmware.com>  wrote:
> >>>Could we stash the counter e.g. in the root page of the index?
> >
> >>That would require maintaining a counter per table rather than a
> >>single global counter, which would be bad because then we'd need to
> >>store one counter in shared memory for every table, rather than just
> >>one, period, which runs up against the fixed sizing of shared memory.
> >
> >I think what Heikki had in mind was that the copy in the index would be
> >the authoritative one, not some image in shared memory.  This'd imply
> >dirtying the root page on every insert, as well as increased contention
> >for the root page, so it might have performance problems.
> 
> Not every insert, just every split. Which might still be a performance
> problem, but an order of magnitude smaller.

I might be dense here and I don't really know that code, but if its only
splits why not do an XLogInsert(XLOG_GIST_NSN) or something there?
Inventing some other form of logging just because its an unlogged table
seems like reinventing the wheel.

Greetings,

Andres Freund

-- Andres Freund                       http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training &
Services