Re: Strange Create Index behaviour

Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>

From: Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Gary Doades <gpd@gpdnet.co.uk>, pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Date: 2006-02-15T23:51:21Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers, pgsql-performance
On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 16:51 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Gary Doades <gpd@gpdnet.co.uk> writes:
> > Interestingly, if I don't delete the table after a run, but just drop 
> > and re-create the index repeatedly it stays a pretty consistent time, 
> > either repeatedly good or repeatedly bad!
> 
> This is consistent with the theory of a data-dependent performance
> problem in qsort.  If you don't generate a fresh set of random test
> data, then you get repeatable runtimes.  With a new set of test data,
> you might or might not hit the not-so-sweet-spot that we seem to have
> detected.

Agreed. Good analysis...

Best Regards, Simon Riggs