Re: [v9.5] Custom Plan API

On 7 May 2014 02:05, Kouhei Kaigai <kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com> wrote:

> (1) DDL support and system catalog
>
> Simon suggested that DDL command should be supported to track custom-
> plan providers being installed, and to avoid nonsense hook calls
> if it is an obvious case that custom-plan provider can help. It also
> makes sense to give a chance to load extensions once installed.
> (In the previous design, I assumed modules are loaded by LOAD command
> or *_preload_libraries parameters).

I've tried hard to bend my mind to this and its beginning to sink in.

We've already got pg_am for indexes, and soon to have pg_seqam for sequences.

It would seem normal and natural to have

* pg_joinam catalog table for "join methods" with a join method API
Which would include some way of defining which operators/datatypes we
consider this for, so if PostGIS people come up with some fancy GIS
join thing, we don't invoke it every time even when its inapplicable.
I would prefer it if PostgreSQL also had some way to control when the
joinam was called, possibly with some kind of table_size_threshold on
the AM tuple, which could be set to >=0 to control when this was even
considered.

* pg_scanam catalog table for "scan methods" with a scan method API
Again, a list of operators that can be used with it, like indexes and
operator classes

By analogy to existing mechanisms, we would want

* A USERSET mechanism to allow users to turn it off for testing or
otherwise, at user, database level

We would also want

* A startup call that allows us to confirm it is available and working
correctly, possibly with some self-test for hardware, performance
confirmation/derivation of planning parameters

* Some kind of trace mode that would allow people to confirm the
outcome of calls

* Some interface to the stats system so we could track the frequency
of usage of each join/scan type. This would be done within Postgres,
tracking the calls by name, rather than trusting the plugin to do it
for us


> I tried to implement the following syntax:
>
>   CREATE CUSTOM PLAN <name> FOR (scan|join|any) HANDLER <func_name>;

Not sure if we need that yet

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