Re: Statistics Import and Export

Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>

From: Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>
To: Corey Huinker <corey.huinker@gmail.com>
Cc: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>, Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com>, Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>, Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@enterprisedb.com>
Date: 2024-03-21T06:29:48Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →
  1. Change pg_dump default for statistics export.

  2. pg_dump: Adjust reltuples from 0 to -1 for dumps of older versions.

  3. vacuumdb: Don't skip empty relations in --missing-stats-only mode.

  4. pg_dump: Fix query for gathering attribute stats on older versions.

  5. Prevent redeclaration of typedef TocEntry.

  6. Remove unused function parameters in pg_backup_archiver.c.

  7. pg_dump: Retrieve attribute statistics in batches.

  8. pg_dump: Reduce memory usage of dumps with statistics.

  9. Skip second WriteToc() call for custom-format dumps without data.

  10. Add relallfrozen to pg_dump statistics.

  11. Matview statistics depend on matview data.

  12. Add pg_dump --with-{schema|data|statistics} options.

  13. Stats: use schemaname/relname instead of regclass.

  14. CREATE INDEX: do update index stats if autovacuum=off.

  15. Don't convert to and from floats in pg_dump.

  16. CREATE INDEX: don't update table stats if autovacuum=off.

  17. Organize and deduplicate statistics import tests.

  18. Address stats export review comments.

  19. Address stats import review comments.

  20. Add relallfrozen to pg_class

  21. Fix pg_strtof() to not crash on NULL endptr.

  22. Use attnum to identify index columns in pg_restore_attribute_stats().

  23. pg_dump: prepare attribute stats query.

  24. Avoid unnecessary relation stats query in pg_dump.

  25. Remove redundant pg_set_*_stats() variants.

  26. Do not use in-place updates for statistics import.

  27. Fix confusion about data type of pg_class.relpages and relallvisible.

  28. Documentation fixups for dumping statistics.

  29. Trial fix for old cross-version upgrades.

  30. Transfer statistics during pg_upgrade.

  31. Lock table in ShareUpdateExclusive when importing index stats.

  32. Use in-place updates for pg_restore_relation_stats().

  33. Improve error message for replication of generated columns.

  34. pg_dump: Add dumpSchema and dumpData derivative flags.

  35. Disallow modifying statistics on system columns.

  36. Add missing CommandCounterIncrement() in stats import functions.

  37. Add functions pg_restore_relation_stats(), pg_restore_attribute_stats().

  38. Documentation fixup.

  39. Add functions pg_set_attribute_stats() and pg_clear_attribute_stats().

  40. Change pg_*_relation_stats() functions to return type to void.

  41. Disable autovacuum for tables in stats import tests.

  42. Allow pg_set_relation_stats() to set relpages to -1.

  43. Fixup for pg_set_relation_stats().

  44. Create functions pg_set_relation_stats, pg_clear_relation_stats.

  45. Add memory/disk usage for Window aggregate nodes in EXPLAIN.

  46. Improve performance of dumpSequenceData().

  47. Add INJECTION_POINT_CACHED() to run injection points directly from cache

  48. Improve performance of binary_upgrade_set_pg_class_oids().

  49. Improve assertion in mdwritev()

  50. CREATE INDEX: do not update stats during binary upgrade.

  51. Redefine pg_class.reltuples to be -1 before the first VACUUM or ANALYZE.

On Tue, 2024-03-19 at 05:16 -0400, Corey Huinker wrote:
> v11 attached.

Thank you.

Comments on 0001:

This test:

   +SELECT
   +    format('SELECT pg_catalog.pg_set_attribute_stats( '
   ...

seems misplaced. It's generating SQL that can be used to restore or
copy the stats -- that seems like the job of pg_dump, and shouldn't be
tested within the plain SQL regression tests.

And can the other tests use pg_stats rather than pg_statistic?

The function signature for pg_set_attribute_stats could be more
friendly -- how about there are a few required parameters, and then it
only sets the stats that are provided and the other ones are either
left to the existing value or get some reasonable default?

Make sure all error paths ReleaseSysCache().

Why are you calling checkCanModifyRelation() twice?

I'm confused about when the function should return false and when it
should throw an error. I'm inclined to think the return type should be
void and all failures should be reported as ERROR.

replaces[] is initialized to {true}, which means only the first element
is initialized to true. Try following the pattern in AlterDatabase (or
similar) which reads the catalog tuple first, then updates a few fields
selectively, setting the corresponding element of replaces[] along the
way.

The test also sets the most_common_freqs in an ascending order, which
is weird.

Relatedly, I got worried recently about the idea of plain users
updating statistics. In theory, that should be fine, and the planner
should be robust to whatever pg_statistic contains; but in practice
there's some risk of mischief there until everyone understands that the
contents of pg_stats should not be trusted. Fortunately I didn't find
any planner crashes or even errors after a brief test.

One thing we can do is some extra validation for consistency, like
checking that the arrays are properly sorted, check for negative
numbers in the wrong place, or fractions larger than 1.0, etc.

Regards,
	Jeff Davis