Re: Endgame for all those SELECT FOR UPDATE changes: fix plan node order

On Oct 25, 2009, at 10:34 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

> Now that we've got a hopefully-non-broken implementation of SELECT FOR
> UPDATE locking as a plan node, we can finally contemplate fixing two
> misbehaviors that are called out on the SELECT reference page:
>
>    It is possible for a SELECT command using both LIMIT and FOR
>    UPDATE/SHARE clauses to return fewer rows than specified by  
> LIMIT. This
>    is because LIMIT is applied first. The command selects the  
> specified
>    number of rows, but might then block trying to obtain a lock on  
> one or
>    more of them. Once the SELECT unblocks, the row might have been  
> deleted
>    or updated so that it does not meet the query WHERE condition  
> anymore,
>    in which case it will not be returned.
>
>    Similarly, it is possible for a SELECT command using ORDER BY and  
> FOR
>    UPDATE/SHARE to return rows out of order. This is because ORDER  
> BY is
>    applied first. The command orders the result, but might then block
>    trying to obtain a lock on one or more of the rows. Once the SELECT
>    unblocks, one of the ordered columns might have been modified and  
> be
>    returned out of order. A workaround is to perform SELECT ... FOR
>    UPDATE/SHARE and then SELECT ... ORDER BY.
>
> All that we have to do to fix the first one is to put the LockRows  
> node
> below the Limit node instead of above it.  The solution for the second
> one is to also put LockRows underneath the Sort node, and to regard  
> its
> output as unsorted so that a Sort node will certainly be generated.
> (This in turn implies that we should prefer the cheapest-total plan
> for the rest of the query.)

This seems like it could potentially introduce a performance  
regression, but the current behavior is so bizarre that it seems like  
we should still change it.

> Does anyone have any objections to this?  I can't see that it will  
> break
> any applications that work today, but maybe I'm missing something.

I'm pretty excited about this. It is a nifty piece of foot-gun  
removal.  Thanks!

...Robert