Re: ERROR: found unexpected null value in index

Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> writes:
> I think that the issue is related to a broken HOT chain -- the index
> doesn't even have any NULL key values, since the CREATE INDEX came
> after the INSERT that added a NULL value. However, it does have a
> tuple with the key value 'a' that points to the root of a HOT chain
> whose first value for the indexed attribute is NULL. The successor
> tuple's value for the indexed attribute is 'a', as expected (of
> course, this is a normal state that
> IndexBuildHeapScan()/heapam_index_build_range_scan() expect other code
> to deal with).

> Back when get_actual_variable_range() used a dirty snapshot, it would
> have not seen any NULL value with this test case, because the root of
> the HOT chain would be considered recently dead.

Hm.  So maybe we need to teach it to ignore tuples that are not the tips
of their HOT chains?

            regards, tom lane