Re: [HACKERS] logical decoding of two-phase transactions

Hi all,

>
> PFA, patch which applies cleanly against latest git head. I also
> removed unwanted newlines and took care of the cleanup TODO about
> making ReorderBufferTXN structure using a txn_flags field instead of
> separate booleans for various statuses like has_catalog_changes,
> is_subxact, is_serialized etc. The patch uses this txn_flags field for
> the newer prepare related info as well.
>
> "make check-world" passes ok, including the additional regular and tap
> tests that we have added as part of this patch.
>

PFA, latest version of this patch.

This latest version takes care of the abort-while-decoding issue along
with additional test cases and documentation changes.

We now maintain a list of processes that are decoding a specific
transactionID and make it a decode groupmember of a decode groupleader
process. The decode groupleader process is basically the PGPROC entry
which points to the prepared 2PC transaction or an ongoing regular
transaction.

If the 2PC is rollback'ed then FinishPreparedTransactions uses the
decode groupleader process to let all the decode groupmember processes
know that it's aborting. A similar logic can be used for the decoding
of uncommitted transactions. The decode groupmember processes are able
to abort sanely in such a case. We also have two new APIs
"LogicalLockTransaction" and "LogicalUnlockTransaction" that the
decoding backends need to use while doing system or user catalog
tables access. The abort code interlocks with decoding backends that
might be in the process of accessing catalog tables and waits for
those few moments before aborting the transaction.

The implementation uses the LockHashPartitionLockByProc on the decode
groupleader process to control access to these additional fields in
the PGPROC structure amongst the decode groupleader and the other
decode groupmember processes and does not need to use the
ProcArrayLock at all. The implementation is inspired from the
*existing* lockGroupLeader solution which uses a similar technique to
track processes waiting on a leader holding that lock. I believe it's
an optimal solution for this problem of ours.

Have added TAP tests to test multiple decoding backends working on the
same transaction. Used delays in the test-decoding plugin to introduce
waits after making the LogicalLockTransaction call and calling
ROLLBACK to ensure that it interlocks with such decoding backends
which are doing catalog access. Tests working as desired. Also "make
check-world" passes with asserts enabled.

I will post this same explanation about abort handling on the other
thread (http://www.postgresql-archive.org/Logical-Decoding-and-HeapTupleSatisfiesVacuum-assumptions-td5998294.html).

Comments appreciated.

Regards,
Nikhils
-- 
 Nikhil Sontakke                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL/Postgres-XL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services