Add a new column to pg_am to specify whether an index AM supports backward

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

Commit: e4fb8ff06a8aa1b4c073c46f63b7effd5885e327
Author: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 2008-10-17T22:10:30Z
Releases: 8.4.0
Add a new column to pg_am to specify whether an index AM supports backward
scanning; GiST and GIN do not, and it seems like too much trouble to make
them do so.  By teaching ExecSupportsBackwardScan() about this restriction,
we ensure that the planner will protect a scroll cursor from the problem
by adding a Materialize node.

In passing, fix another longstanding bug in the same area: backwards scan of
a plan with set-returning functions in the targetlist did not work either,
since the TupFromTlist expansion code pays no attention to direction (and
has no way to run a SRF backwards anyway).  Again the fix is to make
ExecSupportsBackwardScan check this restriction.

Also adjust the index AM API specification to note that mark/restore support
is unnecessary if the AM can't produce ordered output.

Files

PathChange+/−
doc/src/sgml/catalogs.sgml modified +8 −1
doc/src/sgml/indexam.sgml modified +12 −7
src/backend/executor/execAmi.c modified +68 −5
src/include/catalog/catversion.h modified +2 −2
src/include/catalog/pg_am.h modified +29 −27